A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 235 



25th), flitting about the woods like ghosts. I 

 whistled softly to tlie first, and he condescended 

 to answer with a low chuck, after which I could 

 get nothing more out of him. This demure 

 taciturnity is very curious and characteristic, 

 and to me very engaging. The fellow will 

 neither skulk nor run, but hops upon some low 

 branch, and looks at you, — behaving not a lit- 

 tle as if you were the specimen and he the stu- 

 dent ! And in such a case, as far as I can see, 

 the bird equally with the man has a right to his 

 own point of view. 



The hermits were not yet in tune ; and with- 

 out forgetting the fox-colored sparrows and the 

 linnets, the song sparrows and the bay-wings, 

 the winter Avrens and the brown thrush, I am 

 almost ready to declare that the best music of 

 the month came from the smallest of all the 

 month's birds, the ruby-crowned kinglets. Their 

 spring season is always short with us, and un- 

 happily it was this year shorter even than usual, 

 my dates being April 23d and May 5th. But 

 we must be thankful for a little, when the little 

 is of such a qualit}^ Once I descried two of them 

 in the topmost branches of a clump of tall ma- 

 ples. For a long time they fed in silence ; then 

 they began to chase each other about through 

 the trees, in graceful evolutions (I can imagine 

 nothing more graceful), and soon one, and then 



