W UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



*' To morning hours when oft I trod 

 The spongy fields in search of thee, 

 When Draba starred the chilly sod 

 In a pale, tiny galaxy. 



" Once, in a kindly winter day, 

 By Alabama's waters rude, 

 I saw thee on the mossy spray 

 That stretched in leafless solitude, 



" Upon the steep bank's crumbling side. 

 Enriched with many a fossil shell; 

 And truly, 'twas with joy and pride 

 I saw thee in my precinct dwell : 



" For then it lost its alien face. 



And Fancy dwelt in home once more; 

 I seemed in early Spring's embrace. 

 Beside my far ancestral door. 



"And when shall come the fatal night, 

 Amid my weakness, grief, and pain, 

 I would behold thy circling flight. 

 And die while listening to thy strain." 



Of our migratory birds collectively, it may be said 

 that they come so near the first of May, when the foliage 

 is at least one third grown, that they really mark the 

 commencement of summer ; for, after all, what is sum- 

 mer but green leaves and torrid sunshine, both of which 

 are often as marked a feature of May as of any of the 

 four succeeding months. Of course, this remark does 

 not apply to the so-called " pioneer " birds, which, as 

 stragglers, sometimes appear a week or even two weeks 

 in advance of the main flight. Dr. Barton, in the essay 

 already quoted, referring to summer in May, remarks : 

 " It is an old observation in Pennsylvania, that when 



