96 BIRDS AND POETS 
lights me very much, is the perfect emerald of the 
spring runs while the fields are yet brown and sere, 
— strips and patches of the most vivid velvet green 
on the slopes and in the valleys. How the eye 
grazes there, and is filled and refreshed! I had for- 
gotten what a marked feature this was until I re- 
cently rode in an open wagon for three days through 
a mountainous, pastoral country, remarkable for its 
fine springs. Those delicious green patches are yet 
in my eye. The fountains flowed with May. Where 
no springs occurred, there were hints and sugges- 
tions of springs about the fields and by the roadside 
in the freshened grass,— sometimes overflowing a 
space in the form of an actual fountain. The water 
did not quite get to the surface in such places, but 
sent its influence. 
The fields of wheat and rye, too, how they stand 
out of the April landscape,— great green squares on 
a field of brown or gray! 
Among April sounds there is none more welcome 
or suggestive to me than the voice of the little frogs 
piping in the marshes. No bird-note can surpass it 
as a spring token; and as it is not mentioned, to my 
knowledge, by the poets and writers of other lands, 
I am ready to believe it is characteristic of our sea- 
son alone. You may be sure April has really come 
when this little amphibian creeps out of the mud 
and inflates its throat. We talk of the bird inflat- 
ing its throat, but you should see this tiny minstrel 
inflate its throat, which becomes like a large bubble, 
and suggests a drummer-boy with his drum slung 
