94 NATURE'S CALENDAR 



j^ay 8 t-he wings of the south wind. Hence, 



after a period of bad weather (and the 

 second week of May is almost always 

 stormy), observers note that the trees, 

 almost silent for days before, are filled 

 with birds, many not previously seen, and 

 they say that a "migration wave" is 

 at hand. Thus in wave after wave, has- 

 tening forward through the moonlight or 

 the starlight nights, struggling along in 

 the warm, rainy dark, loitering by day 

 and pausing whenev^er storms block the 

 way, they press forward — each to its well- 

 remembered home. Few are mated 

 when they arrive, but this is speedily 

 attended to when the place of their 

 choice is reached and the slower hen 

 birds have overtaken them ; so that by 

 the end of May the majority of our resi- 

 dent birds of the United States have 

 built their homes and are laying their 

 eggs, and morning and evening the air is 

 filled with their songs. 



To the long list of small white April 

 flowers are now to be added larger, 

 gaudier blossoms with more coloring, 

 while the chestnuts stand boldly out 

 from their background of hill-side woods 

 in a garb of yellow blossoms. Yellow, 

 indeed, is a color highly characteristic of 

 the blossoms of May. Dandelions still 

 bejeu^el the lawns ; out of the lush 

 meadows rise great globular tufts of 

 golden mustard, and lower doum creeps 

 the modest five-finger and the yellow 



