APRIL IN BERKELEY 



HERE is an indescribable gladness among the 

 fields and over the hills as the birds come 

 hurrying and crowding back from their winter 

 sojourn in the south, at the genial invitation 

 of spring. The warm promptings of their 

 hearts urge them to love-making, and the 

 sacred duties of the nest once more engross their devoted little 

 minds. It is at such times as this that we are most closely 

 drawn to our feathered friends by ties of sympathetic feeling; 

 for are they not enacting the same life drama that we enact, 

 with their heart-burnings and jealousies, their unsatisfied long- 

 ings cmd tender loves, their watchfulness and care of the 

 young? There is a beautiful solemnity about this season of 

 new life, when numberless fair creatures are mating in bush 

 and tree. Love is the ruling impulse of the hour, and patient 

 care and devoted self-sacrifice prevail in nature's realm. 



As April emerges in the procession of the seasons many 

 changes are already in progress. The precious Anna's hum- 

 mer fashioned its tiny basket at least a month before, and is 

 now busy rearing its two helpless young. The summer warbler, 

 in its raiment of gold, came flitting about our trees in mid 

 March, during which month, also, a number of our winter birds 

 departed for their breeding-ground in the north. The shy, 



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