CHIPMUNKS, BLUEBIRDS, AND 

 ROBINS 



THE season was opened, formally, on the 

 10th of March. I am speaking for myself. 

 Friday, the 8th, brought genuine spring 

 weather, sunny and warm, an ideal day for 

 the first bluebird ; but I was obliged to 

 waste it in the city. The 9th was rainy 

 and cold, and though I spent some hours 

 out of doors, I saw no vernal signs. Birds 

 of all sorts were never so few. The next 

 morning cloudy, with a raw northeasterly 

 wind I was fifteen minutes away from 

 home when a squirrel came out of the woods 

 on one side of the way and ran across the 

 road before me. It was a chipmunk, my 

 first one of the new year, wide-awake and 

 quick on its legs ; and it was hardly in the 

 hazel bushes on the other side of the road 

 before another joined it, and the two chased 

 each other out of sight. Spring had come. 



