APRIL 



Saw a pigeon woodpecker flash away, showing 

 the rich golden underside of its glancing wings 

 and the large whitish spot on its back, and pres- 

 ently I heard its familiar, long-repeated, loud note, 

 almost as familiar as that of a barn-door fowl, 

 which it somewhat resembles. The robins, too, 

 now toward sunset, perched on the old apple-trees 

 in TarbePs orchard, twirl forth their evening lays 

 unweariedly. . . . To-night, for the first time, I 

 hear the hylas in full blast. 



THOREAU : Early Spring in Massachusetts. 



How still the morning is ! It is at such times 

 that we discover what music there is in the souls 

 of the little slate-colored snowbirds. How they 

 squeal, and chatter, and chirp, and trill, always in 

 scattered troops of fifty or a hundred, filling the 

 air with a fine sibilant chorus ! That joyous and 

 childlike " chew," " chew," " chew " is very expres- 

 sive. Through this medley of finer songs and calls, 

 there is shot, from time to time, the clear, strong 

 note of the meadowlark. It comes from some 

 field or tree farther away, and cleaves the air like 



an arrow. 



BURROUGHS: Pcpacton. 



