AUTUMN HUNTING 339 



began to run about and to try his tiny wings, and 

 little by little he taught himself to fly. But in the 

 efforts he got many a tumble and broke or lost 

 many a feather. Nature, however, has foreseen 

 this, and to her grouse children she gives several 

 changes of wing feathers to practise with, before 

 the last strong winter quills come in. 



How different it is with the robin. Naked and 

 helpless he comes from his blue shell, and only 

 one set of wing quills falls to his share, so it be- 

 hooves him to be careful indeed of these. He 

 remains in the nest until they are strong enough 

 to bear him up, and his first attempts are care- 

 fully supervised by his anxious parents. And so 

 the glimpse we had in the October woods of the 

 two pair of wings held more of interest than we 

 at first thought. 



In many parts of the country, about October 

 fifteenth the crows begin to flock back and forth 

 to and from their winter roosts. In some years it 

 is the twelfth, or again the seventeenth, but the 

 constancy of the mean date is remarkable. Many 

 of our winter visitants have already slipped into 

 our fields and woods and taken the places of some 

 of the earlier southern migrants; but the daily 

 passing of the birds which delay their journey 

 until fairly pinched by the lack of food at the 

 first frosts extends well into November. It is 

 not until the foliage on the trees and bushes be- 



