THE FIRST BLUEBIRDS. 



SOME of the wildest, roughest, and most heav- 

 ily timbered country within sight of Boston lies 

 in the western end of Winchester and along the 

 northern edge of Arlington. I reached it on 

 the afternoon of the last day of winter, by walk- 

 ing along the western shore of Mystic Pond until 

 near the Winchester line, then bearing to the 

 left until I gained the high wooded ledges which 

 command Winchester village from the west. It 

 was a blustering day : the air was filled alter- 

 nately with golden sunlight and flurries of large 

 snowflakes. Dry snow covered the ground. 

 Along the stone walls it had drifted heavily, 

 reaching in many places a depth of two feet. 

 Walking in the ploughed fields was uncertain, 

 the furrows being filled with snow and the ridges 

 blown free from it. The brooks were noisy, but 

 their music was muffled by decks of thin ice 

 which partially covered them. Great white air- 

 bubbles rolled along under these ice decks. 

 Here and there watercress, buttercup leaves 

 and long blades of grass could be seen pressed 

 upward against the transparent ice by the pulsat- 



