] I SIGNS OF SPRING 



seize with avidity these first offerings we are 

 hungry for them. 



It changes the whole aspedt of things, when on 

 some raw day the first redwing of the season 

 appears a vivid bit of color in the bleak swamp, 

 a hopeful and melodious voice breaking the silence 

 of the year. The birds are shy and elusive on 

 their arrival and we have every year to become 

 acquainted again. Even the robins are furtive and 

 silent, flitting in the sheltered swamps; but the 

 middle of March finds them calling to each other 

 in their old jocular way. Drawn by the same 

 subtle influence, the angleworm seems to work 

 toward the surface about the time the robin is 

 thinking of the lawn, till one day they meet as by 

 appointment. If the season is late, the worm re- 

 tires below where it is less frosty, and the robin 

 takes to the sumac berries, or whatever else he can 

 find, and defers his spring relish a little longer. 



Round about there is an awakening as from an 

 enchanted sleep ; the drowsy world yawns and 

 stretches. The highhole is in evidence, and his 

 rattling call is calculated to awake the sleepers in 

 that pasture at least. Soon the chipmunk is on the 

 wall, and the woodchuck warily pokes his head 



'5 



