THE SPRING BIRD PROCESSION 



more or less a migrant. I saw not one here during 

 the winter, which is unusual. As one goes south in 

 winter the number of jays greatly increases, till in 

 Georgia they are nearly as abundant as robins are 

 here in summer. 



In late April a friend wrote me from a town in 

 northern New York that the high-holes disturbed 

 his sleep in the early morning by incessant drum- 

 ming on the metal roofs and gutters and ridge- 

 boards. They were making the same racket around 

 us at the same hour. Early in the month a pair of 

 them seem to have been attracted to a cavity in the 

 mid-top of a maple-tree near the house, and the 

 male began to warm up under the fever of the nest- 

 ing-impulse, till he made himself quite a nuisance 

 to sleepers who did not like to be drummed out 

 before five o'clock in the morning. How loudly he 

 did publish and proclaim his joy in the old com- 

 mand which spring always reaffirms in all creatures ! 

 With call and drum, repeated to the weariness of 

 his less responsive neighbors, he made known the 

 glad tidings from his perch on the verge of the tin 

 roof; he would send forth the loud, rapid call, which, 

 as Thoreau aptly says, has the effect as of some one 

 suddenly opening a window and calling in breathless 

 haste, "Quick, quick, quick, quick!" Then he 

 would bow his head and pour a volley of raps upon 

 the wood or metal, which became a continuous 

 stream of ringing blows. One would have thought 

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