SPRING SONGSTERS 



EARLY April sees the last contest which win- 

 ter wages for supremacy, and often it is a 

 half-hearted attempt; but after the army of the 

 North has retreated, with its icicles and snow- 

 drifts, 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 lire — ■ 

 paralysed — while the chill is thawing from their 

 marrow. Our northern visitors of the bird world 

 slip quietly away. There is no great gathering 

 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 juncos and tree spar- 

 rows in the tangled, frost-burned stubble, and the 

 next day, although our eye catches glints of white 

 from sparrow tails, it is from vesper finches, not 

 from juncos, and the weed spray which a few 

 hours before bent beneath a white-throat's weight, 

 now vibrates with the energy which a field spar- 

 row puts into his song. Field and chipping spar- 

 rows, which now come in numbers, are somewhat 

 alike, but by their beaks and songs you may know 

 them. The mandibles of the former are flesb- 



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