APRIL IN BERKELEY 



of memories and delights arises. Here they are — the bam and 

 the cliff swallows — the same in this far land that a Wisconsin 

 childhood had made dear to me. How swiftly and dexter- 

 ously they cleave the air with their long, sharp wings, wheeling 

 and eddying about, seemingly in pure delight of the motion. 

 I have known estimable men and women in this workaday 

 world of ours who had no clear conception of the difference 

 between a swallow and a sparrow. Alas for you, my good 

 friends; what a joy has been absent from your lives; what a 

 lack in not being able to claim kinship with these masters 

 of the air! I shall not detain you with a description which 

 would fall so far short of the living image, but simply bid you 

 go to the country when next the spring air gives assurance that 

 the swallows have come, and make their acquaintance about 

 any farmhouse; and, by all means, learn to distinguish the 

 barn swallow, with his long, forked tail, for he is so much of 

 an aristocrat you cannot fail to appreciate him. 



The tiny rufous hummer does not mate so early in the 

 season as its resident cousin, Anna's hummer, but by the first 

 of April it is paired and at work upon the nest, which is truly 

 a marvel of a home, so delicate and downy, so deftly con- 

 structed and so perfectly concealed. To detect the nest by a 

 scrutiny of the bush or tree in which it is placed would be a 

 hopeless task, so minute is its size and so perfectly does it blend 

 with the branch upon which it is placed, but the anxiety of the 

 birds when their home is approached, or more frequently their 

 daring resentment, reveals its presence. Whenever the angry 

 buzz of one of these intrepid mites is heard close at hand, it is 

 safe to surmise that the nest is not far off. Even then it is not 

 easy to discover it, but with patience and quiet the owners may 



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