170 NOTES BY THE WAY. 



I examined the ponds and marshes, and found bull 

 frogs buried in the mud, but no peepers. 



THE SPRING BIEDS. 



WE never know the precise time the birds leave 

 us in the fall ; they do not go suddenly ; their de- 

 parture is like that of an army of occupation in no 

 hurry to be off ; they keep going and going, and we 

 hardly know when the last straggler is gone. Not 

 so their return in the spring ; then it is like an army 

 of invasion, and we know the very day when the first 

 scouts appear. It is a memorable event. Indeed, 

 it is always a surprise to me, and one of the com- 

 pensations of our abrupt and changeable climate, this 

 suddenness with which the birds come in spring, in 

 fact, with which Spring itself comes, alighting, may 

 be, to tarry only a day or two, but real and genuine, 

 for all that. When March arrives, we do not know 

 what a day may bring forth. It is like turning over 

 a leaf, a new chapter of startling incidents lying just 

 on the other side. A few days ago, winter had 

 not perceptibly relaxed his hold ; then suddenly he 

 began to soften a little, and a warm haze to creep 

 up from the south, but not a solitary bird, save the 

 ivinter residents, was to be seen or heard. Next day 

 the sun seemed to have drawn immensely nearer ; his 

 veams were full of power ; and we said, " Behold, 



