BLUE JAYS. 249 



October to March. For five months we have 

 had snow-birds, and none the less a feature 

 when the asters empurpled the hillsides than 

 later when the fields were snowbound. What 

 of them, too, as summer comes on apace? 

 Even above the wreckage of a wild winter, snow- 

 birds can be cheerful. Never so tattered and 

 torn the rank growths of the dead year but the 

 snow-birds have reason to rejoice. If not at the 

 present outlook, then they take a peep into fu- 

 turity and sing of what will be. Probably our 

 world looks its dreariest in March, as the dark- 

 est hour of night is just before the dawn, but 

 happily the gloom does not weigh upon snow- 

 birds, and to know how cheerfully they can 

 sing one must hear them then. Their whole 

 souls are in their utterances, and when a hun- 

 dred or more ring out their gladness, March 

 sunshine grows the brighter, the winds are tem- 

 pered, and many a yellow leaf becomes a 

 golden blossom. 



Blue 



" WHAT is the most characteristic feature of 

 November?" asked a shivering friend from 

 town, as we stood with our backs to the rain- 



