SPRING AT THE CAPITAL. 153 



comes about the yard, pecking at the clothes-line, and 

 gathering up bits of thread to weave into her nest. 



Swallows appear in Washington from the first to the 

 middle of April. They come twittering along in the 

 way so familiar to every New England boy. The barn- 

 swallow is heard first, followed in a day or two by the 

 squeaking of the cliff-swallow. The chimney-swallows, 

 or swifts, are not far behind, and remain here, in large 

 numbers, the whole season. The purple martins ap- 

 pear in April, as they pass north, and again in July and 

 August on their return, accompanied by their young. 



The national capital is situated in such a vast spread 

 of wild, wooded, or semi-cultivated country, and is in 

 itself so open and spacious, with its parks and large 

 government reservations, that an unusual numher of 

 birds find their way into it in the course of the season. 

 Rare warblers, as the black-poll, the yellow red-poll, 

 and the bay-breasted, pausing in May on their north- 

 ward journey, pursue their- insect game in the very 

 heart of the town. 



I have heard the veery thrush in the trees near the 

 White House ; and one rainy April morning, about six 

 o'clock, he came and blew his soft, mellow flute in a 

 pear-tree in my garden. The tones had all the sweet- 

 ness and wildness they have when heard in June in 

 our deep Northern forests. A day or two afterward, 

 in the same tree, I heard for the first time the song of 

 the golden-crowned wren, or kinglet, — the same liquid 

 bubble and cadence which characterize the wren-songs 



