'TWIXT COLD AND HEAT. 63 



animals ? If so, how is it that the January thaw rouses 

 even the most methodical of thera all, the jumping 

 mouse ? The fishes have been in the deep waters since 

 last November, and active too, as when you saw them 

 last, during an October ramble. A few have been lying 

 dormant, in the nmd, bnt their rousing from such 

 slumber may occur at any time, and so the significance 

 is wanting. 



Is it the batrachians that, by their united chorus, pro- 

 claim the advent of spring? Then how explain their 

 full-voiced chorus on December 31 and on New Year's 

 Day? 



As to the birds : it is not the fish-hawk, which did 

 not come on the 21st of March, this year ; nor yet the 

 kill-deer plovers, for sometimes they appear on the 

 meadows in February ; nor can we say that pee-wees 

 bring spring with them. They are sometimes at their 

 haunts of tiie past year as early as February 22, and 

 have been called " Washington birds ;" " cherry-tree 

 fly-catchers " would be better, for the cherry is a favor- 

 ite tree with them, particularly when its fruit attracts 

 the flies. 



As long ago as 1799, Dr. Benjamin S. Barton, of 

 Philadelphia, wrote of our spring birds as follows: 

 " Although, in Pennsylvania, and many other parts of 

 the United States, the arrival of our birds does not ap- 

 pear to be as uniform as it is in many of the countries 

 of the Old World ; the arrival of several species is, 

 nevertheless, so regular, that it may be considered as 

 the signal for commencing certain agricultural opera- 

 tions. Thus, the Muscicapa fusca, which we call Pewe, 



