BERKELEY IN MAY 



OW happy are the birds in the glad month of 

 May! Here in Berkeley on the slope of the 

 hills the sun is warm and full of the cheer of 

 summer; and the birds are in the midst of 

 their courtship and nesting. What a plaster- 

 ing of mud nests there is among the swallows ! 

 what a search for eligible sites for homes among the merry 

 wrens and the blithesome linnets! what a fashioning of dainty 

 little nests by the humming-birds ! The bush-tit has swung her 

 marvelous purse of lichens among the live-oaks, and the gold- 

 finch has tucked her soft little basket in an apple bough. All 

 are happy and busy with the promise of the spring. 



As I walk through the fields and over the hills I am 

 greeted with a multitude of songs that make the air glad with 

 their cheer. From a post by the side of the half-grown patch 

 of grain a meadow-lark tunes his mellow pipe and gives forth 

 tones of such a varied, flute-like quality that it sounds like the 

 piping of some inspired pastoral shepherd who knows his love 

 is near. There he sits in his streaked coat of brown, with vest 

 of gay yellow and crescent of black upon his breast, singing 

 to his demure little dame upon her nest. 



It is not an easy nest to discover in a field of grain, so deftly 

 is it concealed, but once found is well worth all the pains be- 



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