72 NATURE IN A CITY YARD 



sent, occasionally resuming the exercise 

 later. What are they doing? They do 

 not seem to be chasing any luckier one 

 of their number with a crust in his beak, 

 though at times there is a moment of live- 

 lier rush, as if hoping to overtake some- 

 thing. It seems rather a sport. They play 

 circus, or follow-my-leader. They are lit- 

 erally skylarking, except for the song. 



When spring comes in town the arrival is 

 quick, but especially insidious. You quar- 

 rel with your overcoat, and your graceless 

 pot-hat makes your brow sweat. Then 

 you notice that it is warm, and you look 

 to the earth to prove it. Yes, the grass is 

 an inch out of the ground, yet only the 

 day before yesterday you noticed the yard 

 narrowly, and there was no new green, only 

 the dusty green of the rhododendron leaves 

 and the buds it has been cherishing since 

 fall ; the gray green of the honeysuckle ; 

 the streaks of old green in the grass, where 

 it was cheated by a midwinter spell of 

 October weather into coming out, then 

 brutally nipped ; and the dull stalks of the 

 roses with their leaf-buds in the axils of 



