SPKINU JOTTINGS IGl 



and calling cheerily. The male bluebird spreads 

 his tail as he flits about at this season, in a way 

 to make him look very gay and dressy. It adds 

 to his expression considerably, and makes him 

 look alert and beau-like, and every inch a male. 

 The grass is green under the snow and has 

 grown perceptibly. The warmth of the air 

 seems to go readily through a covering of ice 

 and snow. Note how quickly the ice lets go 

 of the door-stones, though completely covered, 

 when the day becomes warm." 



The farmers say a deep snow draws the frost 

 out of the ground. It is certain that the frost 

 goes out when the ground is deeply covered for 

 some time, though it is of course the warmth 

 rising up from the depths of the ground that 

 does it. A winter of deep snows is apt to 

 prove fatal to the peach buds. The frost leaves 

 the ground, the soil often becomes so warm that 

 angle-worms rise to near the surface, the sap in 

 the trees probably stirs a little; then there 

 comes a cold wave, the mercury goes down to 

 ten or fifteen below zero, and the peach buds are 

 killed. It is not the cold alone that does it; it 

 is the warmth at one end and the extreme cold 

 at the other. When the snow is removed so 

 that the frost can get at the roots also, peach 

 buds will stand fourteen or fifteen degrees be- 

 low zero. 



March 7, 1881. A perfect spring day at 

 last, — still, warm, and without a cloud. 

 Tapped two trees; the sap runs, the snow runs, 

 everything runs. Bluebirds the only birds yet. 



