APRIL 



rearing their own young. As these birds 

 do not mate, and as therefore there can be 

 little or no rivalry or competition between 

 the males, one wonders — in view of Dar- 

 win's teaching — why one sex should have 

 brighter and richer plumage than the other, 

 which is the fact. The males are easily dis- 

 tinguished from the dull and faded females 

 by their deep glossy-black coats. 

 ^ The April of English literature corre- 

 sponds nearly to our May. In Great Britain, 

 the swallow and the cuckoo usually arrive 

 by the middle of April ; with us, their ap- 

 pearance is a week or two later. Our 

 April, at its best, is a bright, laughing face 

 under a hood of snow, like the English 

 March, but presenting sharper contrasts, 

 a greater mixture of smiles and tears and 

 icy looks than are known to our ancestral 

 climate. Indeed, Winter sometimes re- 

 traces his steps in this month, and unbur- 

 dens himself of the snows that the previous 

 cold has kept back ; but we are always sure 

 of a number of radiant, equable days,— 

 days that go before the bud, when the sun 

 embraces the earth with fervor and deter- 

 mination. How his beams pour into the 

 woods till the mould under the leaves is 



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