jo Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



cess of joy ? Man, in his inordinate conceit, 

 would doubtless have differently arranged mat- 

 ters, and ordered more solos by the cardinal 

 and song-sparrow, or duets by the crested tit 

 and vesper birds, but man should remember 

 that on all such occasions he is an uninvited 

 guest, and ought at least to have sufficiently 

 good manners not to criticise only he hasn't ! 

 Lord of creation, no doubt, but in many a way 

 he makes a pretty mess of it. 



April showers ! There is nothing depressing 

 about them, and if I ventured to criticise our 

 spring-tide and its birds, it would be that our 

 April shower might be a little repressing so far 

 as the robins are concerned. They certainly 

 are too noisy. A typical shower now fairly 

 electrifies the north-bound warblers, and with- 

 out exaggeration they can be likened to honey- 

 bees just before they swarm. I have tried more 

 than once to count the warblers in my door- 

 yard elm, but gave up in despair. Possibly the 

 most noticeably excited bird, after an April 

 shower, is the peewee. This is in part because, 

 later in the season, the bird is methodical and 

 emotionless, if not positively melancholy. Not 



