IN THE WREN ORCHARD. 205 



robin's harshness. It is a stirring, bold, free 

 song, having little musical merit and no pathos, 

 but plenty of " go " and " swing." The metallic 

 squeak which the bird genei-ally makes just 

 before he begins his song is an odd and unmis' 

 takable sound, which once learned never fails to 

 identify this beautiful finch. 



Back of the orchard in the evergreens I hear a 

 chickadee calling, and a moment ago a blue jay's 

 scream attracted my notice. Their voices carry 

 me back many Sundays to those winter days 

 when I began my walks. This slope now soft with 

 thick grass and splendid with golden buttercups, 

 shy violets, jolly little potentillas and pale wild 

 geraniums swaying in the breeze, was then 

 eighteen inches deep in snow. These trees now 

 arrayed in lustrous foliage were then encased in 

 ice armor or muffled in the snow which crushed 

 the cedars to the earth and wrecked yonder 

 prostrate willow, whose fall I remember seeing 

 and hearing. The blue jays, chickadees, and 

 robins which frequented this warm pasture in 

 January are probably hundreds of miles from 

 here to-day, rearing their young in the woods 

 and fields of the far north. The glistening snow 

 which then burdened the earth and trees is now 

 gleaming in this brook, flowing as life blood 

 through these tree trunks, forming the chief 

 part of these brightly tinted leaves of grass, 



