APRIL 



rearing their own young. As these birds 

 do not mate, and as therefore there can be 

 little or no rivalry or competition between 

 the males, one wonders in view of Dar- 

 win's teaching why one sex should have 

 brighter and richer plumage than the other, 

 which is the fact. The males are easily dis- 

 tinguished from the dull and faded females 

 by their deep glossy-black coats. 



The April of English literature corre- 

 sponds nearly to our May. In Great Britain, 

 the swallow and the cuckoo usually arrive 

 by the middle of April ; with us, their ap- 

 pearance is a week or two later. Our 

 April, at its best, is a bright, laughing face 

 under a hood of snow, like the English 

 March, but presenting sharper contrasts, 

 a greater mixture of smiles and tears and 

 icy looks than are known to our ancestral 

 climate. Indeed, Winter sometimes re- 

 traces his steps in this month, and unbur- 

 dens himself of the snows that the previous 

 cold has kept back ; but we are always sure 

 of a number of radiant, equable days, 

 days that go before the bud, when the sun 

 embraces the earth with fervor and deter- 

 mination. How his beams pour into the 

 woods till the mould under the leaves is 

 81 



