The Birds' Calendar 



its surroundings, as in looking at the swans. A 

 pair of them on a great lake look large and im- 

 posing ; twenty of them huddled together in a 

 little basin look contemptibly small. 



As one waiting for the morning looks eagerly 

 for the first faint flush in the east, so the natu- 

 ralist in this latitude by the middle of February 

 begins to strain eye and ear for the earliest signs 

 of spring. These tokens are found in a slight 

 increase of some of the birds, in their passing 

 from mere call-notes to twitters, and in an 

 occasional sporadic song, like a spring-flower 

 caught blooming beneath the snow. 



On the 1 6th snow-birds began to twitter, 

 the song sparrow broke forth into melody, and 

 high on a branch, its bright, ruddy breast never 

 more beautiful and welcome, appeared the first 

 robin of the season. In these days what a faint 

 undercurrent of life now and then bubbles to 

 the surface; just as in a mountainous country, 

 long before sunrise, peak after peak is softly 

 tipped with rosy light. 



These are delusive days. A whiff of spring 

 to-day gets buried under two feet of snow to- 

 morrow. Yet one feels that things are not 



62 



