liiaben (Brass is (Sreen 



connecting chain. Nature, after the storm, is not 

 always to be likened to Venus rising from the sea; 

 May, sometimes, with her dripping locks, is not 

 fresh, but bedraggled, and there is a shudder in 

 the landscape, as there is in us on rising from a 

 plunge in cold water. It was so to-day until the 

 fitful sunshine warmed the birds and trees, and 

 then never was the world so beautiful. While 

 freshets cover a good deal of ground, they un- 

 cover many a secret of the earth and air. 



I found purple martins in abundance in one 

 wooded corner of the marsh, now a lake; 

 knowing of no martin box very near, I looked 

 for their home, and, while not quite sure, believe 

 they were nesting in a great gum-tree, in which 

 I know are many hollows. Perhaps I may fol- 

 low this up and make sure later in the season. 

 But I did find the beautiful white-bellied swal- 

 lows and their nests. Single pairs were occu- 

 pying old, downy woodpeckers' nests in dead 

 birches which grew in a swampy meadow that is 

 impassable when the water is at its lowest stage. 

 How tame they were! My boat touched the 

 tree, while the birds clung to the entrance to 

 the nest, or perched upon the top of the dead 

 and limbless tree- trunk. The light, as reflected 

 from their glossy backs, was very brilliant, and the 

 birds, tree, and water made a beautiful picture. 



There is a wide-spread impression in my own 

 neighborhood that the white-bellied swallows 

 80 



