6 MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 



equivalent therefor, will perhaps be of interest hereafter 

 to some explorer of our cloaca maxima, whenever it is 

 cleansed. 



For many years I have been in the habit of noting 

 down some of the leading events of my embowered soli 

 tude, such as the coming of certain birds and the like, 

 a kind of memoires pour servir, after the fashion of White, 

 rather than properly digested natural history. I thought 

 it not impossible that a few simple stories of my winged 

 acquaintances might be found entertaining by persons 

 of kindred taste. 



There is a common notion that animals are better 

 meteorologists than men, and I have little doubt that in 

 immediate weather-wisdom they have the advantage of 

 our sophisticated senses (though I suspect a sailor or 

 shepherd would be their match), but I have seen nothing 

 that leads me to believe their minds capable of erecting 

 the horoscope of a whole season, and letting us know be 

 forehand whether the winter will be severe or the sum 

 mer rainless. I more than suspect that the clerk of the 

 weather himself does not always know very long in ad 

 vance whether he is to draw an order for hot or cold, 

 dry or moist, and the musquash is scarce likely to be 

 wiser. I have noted but two days' difference in the 

 coming of the song-sparrow between a very early and a 

 very backward spring. This very year I saw the linnets 

 at work thatching, just before a snow-storm which 

 covered the ground several inches deep for a number of 

 days. They struck work and left us for a while, no 

 doubt in search of food. Birds frequently perish from 

 sudden changes in our whimsical spring weather of 

 which they had no foreboding. More than thirty years 

 ago, a cherry-tree, then in full bloom, near my window, 

 was covered with humming-birds benumbed by a fall of 

 mingled rain and snow, which probably killed many of 



