BIRD PARADISE 235 



lo ! the transfiguration. Just a grand forward 

 march from use to use, from beauty to beauty. 



This morning, just at the break of day, I 

 noticed the crows seemed to be in quite a quandary. 

 There was a thick fog and they rocked about in it 

 like ships on an unknown sea. Some of them 

 dropped down into my orchard and tumbled over 

 and over each other in trying to get their bear- 

 ings again. A crow lost is as helpless a creature 

 as one can well imagine. It seems to affect his 

 powers of flight. The wings work but some- 

 way all in vain. I suppose the feeling that he is 

 lost makes everything about him seem strange. 

 These fellows that landed in my orchard didn't 

 appear to have the least idea who the parson was. 

 Their bowing and cawing was fully up to crow 

 politeness, but not in the least intended to apply 

 in that direction. When they finally got out of 

 the dilemma and fairly on the wing I watched 

 them out of sight, and soon after heard an uproar 

 in my neighbor's orchard, a repetition probably 

 of the twists and turns I had just witnessed. I 

 am always interested in the idiosyncrasies of crow 

 character. The don't-care, bubbling-over ele- 

 ment in it is always at the front. Then the 



