AN OCTOBER DIARY. 351 



men can get np new things as much as they please ; 

 but they needn't try to push the old ways to the 

 wall ; there's room enough for both." He is right, 

 there is room enough for both, and ignorance will 

 survive for years to come. Teach the young the fal- 

 lacy of weather lore, but let the older generations 

 believe in it all, in peace. My lecture on " Weather 

 Lore" fell flat on that audience. Every blessed one 

 of the old folks voted me a crank, and the very few 

 young people did not hear it, or failed to catch my 

 meaning. 



For hours the crows have been flying low, and when 

 the day was done a rolling black cloud and a puff of 

 wind ushered in a rain-storm from the south; and 

 soon began the steady pour which means an inky-black 

 night and scarcely any creature astir. It is useless to go 

 abroad at such a time. You can see nothing and hear 

 nothing, and what you chance to touch may mislead 

 you ; for dripping feathers and soaked fur, handled in 

 the dark, are a trial to the flesh and vexation to the 

 spirit. 



It seems never to have occurred to Wilson, Audubon, 

 or Nuttall that birds are gifted with intelligence like 

 our own, differing only in degree — as a rule, having 

 less, except in some one or two directions — while their 

 capabilities are greater. Probably in no one way is the 

 identity of human and bird intelligence shown more 

 clearly than in the marked variation in individual dis- 

 positions. This has been entirely overlooked in the 

 works of the authors mentioned, and in a vast number 

 of instances what is recorded of a single pair of birds 



