The Coming of the Birds 75 



shore would be silent. There never was an 

 April that had not its full complement of 

 robins and blithe meadow-larks, of glori- 

 ous crested tits and gay cardinals, of restless 

 red-wings and stately grakles, and these are 

 quite equal to driving dull care away, and 

 keeping it away, if the migrants did not 

 come at all. Even in March, and early in 

 the month, we often have a foretaste of abun- 

 dant bird-life ; an intimation of what a few 

 weeks will bring us. A bright March morn- 

 ing in 1 893 was an instance of this. I walked 

 for miles along the river-bank with a learned 

 German who was enthusiastic about every- 

 thing but what interested me. This may 

 not seem to be a promising outlook, but we 

 undertook to convert each other. I was to 

 give up my frivolity, he determined. My 

 effort was to get his dry-as-dust whimsies out 

 of him. The great ice-gorge of the past 

 winter was now a torrent of muddy waters 

 and huge cakes of crystal that rushed and 

 roared not only through the river's channel, 

 but over half the meadow-land that bordered 

 it. It was, I admit, an excellent opportunity 

 to study the effects of such occurrences, for 

 to them is due the shaping of the valley, 



