140 



IN SPRING. 



ity as to dates or method that has been so fre- 

 quently insisted upon. They come and go, but 

 beyond this we can be sure of nothing from year 

 to year. Sooner or later, our warblers, thrushes, 

 and fly-catchers come as the world grows green ; 

 sooner or later, as the meadows and upland 

 grow drearily brown, these same birds depart. 



But if, as to birds collectively, we can not be 

 positive in this matter of the time, place, and 

 manner of migration, we can feel moderately con- 

 fident of a return, summer after summer, of cer- 

 tain individual birds, if they have escaped life's 

 perils in the mean while. Says Dr. Robert 

 Brown (Birds of Passage) : " The individual 

 swallow, it is now ascertained, returns from the 

 Canaries or North Africa to the very spot on 

 which it built its little mud mansion the previous 

 summer ; and, according to the observations of 

 the celebrated Jenner, marked birds were caught 

 at their old nests every year for three successive 

 seasons." 



I find the home hillside luxuriantly green to- 

 day, although the first week of May has not yet 

 passed. Even the tardy oaks are well in leaf, 

 and from every nook and corner of the woods 

 and fields there floats the merry song of a nest- 

 ing bird. Among them, are there any friends of 

 a year ago ? Surely I recognize one. Long before 

 sunrise on the morning of April 26th I heard a 



