A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 235 



25th), flitting about the woods like ghosts. I 

 whistled softly to the first, and he condescended 

 to answer with a low chuck, after which I could 

 get nothing more out of him. This demure 

 taciturnity is very curiou% and characteristic, 

 and to me very engaging. The fellow will 

 neither skulk nor run, but hops upon some low 

 branch, and looks at you, behaving not a lit- 

 tle as if you were the specimen and he the stu- 

 dent ! And in such a case, as far as I can see, 

 the bird equally with the man has a right to his 

 own point of view. 



The hermits were not yet in tune ; and with- 

 out forgetting the fox-colored sparrows and the 

 linnets, the song sparrows and the bay-wings, 

 the winter wrens and the brown thrush, I am 

 almost ready to declare that the best music of 

 the month came from the smallest of all the 

 month's birds, the ruby-crowned kinglets. Their 

 spring season is always short with us, and un- 

 happily it was this year shorter even than usual, 

 my dates being April 23d and May 5th. But 

 we must be thankful for a little, when the little 

 is of such a quality. Once I descried two of them 

 in the topmost branches of a clump of tall ma- 

 ples. For a long time they fed in silence ; then 

 they began to chase each other about through 

 the trees, in graceful evolutions (I can imagine 

 nothing more graceful), and soon one, and then 



