April in Berkeley. 



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 appre- 

 ciate him. 



The tiny rufous hummer does not 

 mate so early in the season as its resi- 

 dent cousin, Anna's hummer, but by 

 the first of April it is paired and at 

 work upon the nest, which is truly a mar- 

 vel of a home, so delicate and downy, 

 so deftly constructed and so perfectly 

 concealed. To detect the nest by a 

 scrutiny of the bush or tree in which it 



^S9 



