182 A SPRING RELISH. 



my latitude, eighty miles north of New York, hardly 

 shuts up house at all. That season I heard a lit- 

 tle piping frog on the 7th of December, and on the 

 18th of January, in a spring run, I saw the common 

 bull-frog out of his hibernaculum, evidently thinking 

 it was spring. A copper-head snake was killed here 

 about the same date ; caterpillars did not seem to 

 retire, as they usually do, but came forth every warm 

 day. The note of the bluebird was heard nearly 

 every week all winter, and occasionally that of the 

 robin. Such open winters make one fear that his 

 appetite for spring will be blunted when spring really 

 does come ; but he usually finds that the April days 

 have the old relish. April is that part of the season 

 that never cloys upon the palate. It does not surfeit 

 one with good things, but provokes and stimulates the 

 curiosity. One is on the alert, there are hints and sug- 

 gestions on every hand. Something has just passed, 

 or stirred, or called, on breathed, in the open air or in 

 the ground about, that we would fain know more of. 

 May is sweet, but April is pungent. There is frost 

 enough in it to make it sharp, and heat enough in it 

 to make it quick. 



In my walks in April I am on the lookout for 

 water-cresses. It is a plant that has the pungent 

 April flavor. In many parts of the country the wa- 

 ter-cress seems to have become completely natural- 

 ized, and is essentially a wild plant. I found it one 

 day in a springy place, on the top of a high, wooded 

 mountain, far from human habitation. We gathered 



