164 Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



beeches and old oaks when the wind with fitful 

 fierceness rushes through them. This dismal 

 moaning is enough of itself to drive all wild 

 life to close cover, and it seems to do so. Soli- 

 tary crows, that folk-lore says betoken sorrow, 

 are the storm's most fitting attendants, single 

 crows that fly moodily with the wind and never 

 utter a sound as they pass by. I was prepared 

 to see this forlorn creature beating its way over 

 the fields, at times swooping down as if it would 

 clutch the earth and shake it, and then rising 

 petulantly above the trees as if to be beyond 

 reach of its old home and stamping-grounds. 



Every other bird, I supposed, was snugly 

 housed, but herein I was mistaken, which fact 

 makes this my most memorable storm. It 

 would appear that some, at least, of our many 

 kinds of sparrows do not lose their appetites in 

 any weather, and where, to-day, the weeds were 

 rankest, there I found these birds, running like 

 mice along the ground, but with no marked cur- 

 tailment of flight power because of the driving 

 rain. They knew very well what prolonged ex- 

 posure meant, and so only flew when necessity 

 required it. I was both right and wrong. They 



