164 AT THE NORTH OF BE ARC AMP WATER. 
ous wind. It was not until I could jump over¬ 
board in the shoal water and push the boat 
before me out of the wind that I really regained 
the mastery of it. 
About the middle of October a vast regiment 
of birds passes over the Bearcamp valley. On 
the 13th of October, 1889, I counted and recog¬ 
nized 488 birds. Of these, 173 were crows, 
flying from the northeast towards the southwest 
in two great flocks. They passed far above the 
forests, many of them being much above the 
tops of the highest mountains. On the same 
day I counted 143 juncos, which were peppered 
all over fields, roads, small thickets, pasture 
bushes, and woods of small height. Wherever 
we strolled the little cowled heads turned to 
watch us, or the white Y-shaped tail-feathers 
flashed as the juncos flew from us. The white- 
throated sparrows were almost always wdth them, 
coming, I doubt not, from the same breeding- 
grounds, and bent upon reaching the same 
winter-quarters, or havens even farther south 
than those which juncos like. Now and then a 
white-crowned sparrow is to be seen among 
flocks of this kind. Those who watch for them 
are apt to see many white-throats, which they 
try to persuade themselves are the rarer species, 
but when the eye at last rests upon a white- 
crown there is no doubting his identity. 
