102 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



uals, finding sufficient food, prefer the discomforts of 

 remaining throughout winter to the exertion of migra- 

 tion, and so tarry with us the year througli. In March, 

 however, those that did migrate come slowly trooping 

 up this way, and, congregated in considerable flocks, 

 chatter of good times coming, as they crowd the bare 

 branches of the meadow hickories. No severity of 

 weather, in March, disheartens them. Even such a 

 March as that of 1885 was not sufficient to send them 

 southward. 



Pleasant as it is to have the grakles among our win- 

 ter birds, it is in April that interest particularly centres 

 in them, and when one is seen bearing a twig in its 

 beak you may rest assured that it has had a hint of the 

 coming summer the discouraged farmer has failed to 

 recognize. 



While noisy at all times, it is in April that they most 

 frequently essay to sing. Perched where he knows his 

 mate will see him, with partly uplifted wings and 

 spreading tail, he gurgles a few notes that have, at 

 least, the merit of good intention. It is a pleasant 

 sound, because suggestive of longed-for seasonal changes. 

 Particularly was this the case during the past winter, 

 for winter lasted until late in April. The forest was 

 gray until after May 1, when it should have been green, 

 and the frost-nipped anemones, bluets, and arbutus were 

 all hidden in the heaped-up leaves of a year ago. Ex- 

 cept that the spicewood sparkled with scattered gold, 

 and the Draba was starring last year's mould, there was 

 no hint of coining summer; yet the grakles were full 

 of faith, and chattered the day long never bo merrily. 



