398 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



sparrow, flitting amid the young oaks where the ground 

 was covered with snow. I think that this is an indica- 

 tion that the ground is quite bare a little further south. 

 Probably the spring birds never fly far over a snow- 

 clad country. A woodchopper tells me he heard a robin 

 this morning. 



March 15, 1852. A mild spring day. . . . The air 

 is full of bluebirds. The ground almost entirely bare. 

 The villagers are out in the sun, and every man is 

 happy whose work takes him outdoors. ... I lean 

 over a rail to hear what is in the air, liquid with the 

 bluebirds' warble. 



April 3, 1852. The bluebird carries the sky on his 

 back. 



March 10, 1853. What was that sound that came on 

 the softened air? It was the warble of the first blue- 

 bird from that scraggy apple orchard yonder. When 

 this is heard, then has spring arrived. 



March 18, 1853. I no sooner step out of the house 

 than I hear the bluebirds in the air, and far and near, 

 everywhere except in the woods, throughout the town 

 you may hear them, — the blue curls of their warblings, 

 — harbingers of serene and warm weather, little azure 

 rills of melody trickling here and there from out the 

 air, their short warble trilled in the air reminding of 

 so many corkscrews assaulting and thawing the torpid 

 mass of winter, assisting the ice and snow to melt and 

 the streams to flow. 



The bluebird and song sparrow sing immediately on 

 their arrival, and hence deserve to enjoy some preemi- 



