SPRING SONGSTERS 



ARLY April sees the 

 last contest which 

 winter wages for su- 

 premacy, and often it is a half- 

 hearted attempt; but after the 

 army of the North has retreated, 

 with its icicles and snowdrifts, 

 spring seems dazed for a while. Victory has been dearly 

 bought, and April is the season when, for a time, the trees 

 and insects hang fire paralysed while the chill is 

 thawing from their marrow. Our northern visitors of the 

 bird world slip quietly away. There is no great gather- 

 ing of clans like that of the tree swallows in the fall, but 

 silently, one by one, they depart, following the last moan 

 of the north wind, covering winter's disordered retreat with 

 warbles and songs. 



One evening we notice the j uncos and tree sparrows 

 in the tangled, frost-burned stubble, and the next day, 

 although our eye catches glints of white from sparrow 



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