CUCKOO NOTES. 
TAKEN at the right season, the mountainous 
region of northern Georgia will furnish a prac- 
tically unworked field to the naturalist and 
pedestrian tourist, whilst to the artist it must 
become, sooner or later, a source of rich treas- 
ure. No other part of our country offers so 
pleasing a variety of landscape features, from 
the quiet repose of level river-fed valleys to 
the grandeur of rocky peaks thrown up against 
the bluest sky in the world. 
This region is the Spring haunt of a large 
number of our American birds, as it affords 
the best possible nesting- and feeding-places 
for them, especially those whose habits are in- 
sectivorous and arboreal; besides, it is in the 
direct line of migration from Florida and other 
southern winter resorts to the great northern 
summer habitat of those happy feathered aris- 
tocrats who can afford to oscillate with the sun. 
The peculiarities of soil, the suddenness with 
which Spring comes on, and the protection to 
tender germs afforded by the curiously moun- 
tain-locked “ pockets”? and valleys, cause all 
sorts of forest and field vegetation ‘to leap 
into vivid, lusty life early in April. 
There is no word in our language so express- 
ive of the sudden appearance of leaf and 
flower all over those brown hills and slate- 
gray valleys, as gush. The rains practically 
end with March, and the sun ushers in the suc- 
ceeding month with a fervor that would be up- 
