260 Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



not do this, but do not say a tree or any cluster 

 of them has little or nothing to tell until you 

 have done so. The silent man is not necessarily 

 he who has least to say. 



I have said that when the sun shone it was 

 almost summery above our heads, if not about 

 our feet. Many a bird finds it so, and as every 

 sound comes to you now peculiarly distinct, it 

 is something worth the while to hear a bird sing, 

 even to hear a passing snow-bird chirp, and, too, 

 what endless amusement in that ceaseless com- 

 edy of the persecuting crows and the patient 

 hawk ; an unused opportunity for some orni- 

 thological Shakespeare. A word more of these 

 unfailing friends of mine, the clamorous crows. 

 "Occasionally," writes Lucretius, "the long- 

 lived generations of crows . . . change their 

 hoarse notes with the weather, when they are 

 said (sometimes) to call for rain and showers and 

 sometimes to cry for gales of wind." Of a 

 clear, sunny, midwinter day, as they pass over 

 these woods or alight in the branches of the 

 trees, they seem to be moved by pure joy in 

 the fact of living, so rich, so content-full and 

 eager is their every utterance. I call my winter 



