APRIL 



17 



As I go down the street just after sunset, I hear 

 many snipe to-night. At this hour, that is, in the 

 twilight, they make a hovering sound high in the 

 air over the villages, and the inhabitants do not 

 know what to refer it to. It is very easily imitated 

 by a sort of shuddering with the breath. . . . 

 Perhaps no one dreamed of snipe an hour ago, and 

 the air seemed empty of such as they ; but as soon 

 as the dusk begins, so that a bird's flight is con- 

 cealed, you hear this peculiar, spirit-suggesting 

 sound, now far, now near, heard through and 

 above the evening din of the village. 



THOREAU : Early Spring in Massachusetts. 



18 



I hear a robin singing in the woods south of 

 Hosmer's, just before sunset. It is a sound asso- 

 ciated with New England village life. It brings to 

 my thoughts summer evenings when the children 

 are playing in the yards before the doors, and their 

 parents, conversing, sit at the open windows. It 

 foretells all this now, before those summer hours 

 are come. 



As I come over the turnpike, the song sparrow's 



jingle comes up from every part of the meadow, as 



native as the tinkling rills or the blossoms of the 



spiraea. Its cheep is like the sound of opening buds. 



THOREAU: Early Spring in Massachusetts. 



