AN OCTOBER DIARY. 381 



they had the protection of the roof a few inches above 

 them. 



Last winter, hundreds of snow-birds roosted in the 

 long rick of corn-stalks ranged beside these cow-sheds. 

 Such shelter would be more to their taste, I doubt not, 

 and I could not but wonder if these were last year's 

 birds, come again to the same winter-quarters, and now 

 were waiting or hoping for another rick of corn-stalks. 

 This is improbable, I admit; but why should not birds 

 that regularly winter here be as systematic in their 

 comings and goings as are the summer residents? I 

 have knowledge of the same birds coming, year after 

 year, to the same spot ; as, for instance, a cat-bird, recog- 

 nized by two white feathers in one wing, which nested 

 for five consecutive summers in the same clump of 

 briers ; and I cannot, in the face of such facts, see any 

 inherent improbability in the other case. It is true that 

 birds do not winter here for the same purpose, but 

 merely are influenced by the question of a food-supply ; 

 but if this proved satisfactory one winter, the birds 

 would probably remember it, and come again. The 

 main difficulty is in the identification of winter resi- 

 dents. They are not sufficiently marked by any one 

 peculiarity, and sing too seldom to enable one to recog- 

 nize individual voices ; but for all this, I felt as if the 

 snow-birds in the barnyard were old friends, and not 

 chance strangers, that happened here by mere accident. 



October 28. — It was raining before the sun could ex- 

 ert his power, and, when nature became fairly visible, it 

 was still wrapped in patchy mists that hid all the low- 



