February 
row rose on the air; but the ‘‘ white-throats,’’ 
whose time has not yet come, were busying 
themselves silently. A pair of robins crossed 
my path; and the handsome cardinal, like a 
presiding genius in the scene, was flitting from 
tree to tree; while the little chickadee was as 
full of pranks as the irrepressible youngest child 
in the family. 
These were the auspicious premonitions of 
spring that I found on the 28th of February. 
But the calendar is wrong in saying that spring 
comes in with March. For three weeks longer 
night triumphs over day. But such unwonted 
throbs of life are not prompted by old Boreas. 
Already the eastern sky shows a peculiar, per- 
haps half-imagined glow, and there is a balmy 
presentiment abroad. 
67 
