THE SPRING OF 1908 303 



heard! One day the culprit was discovered. 

 The gamekeeper chanced to be passing a barn 

 where the ploughman was tending his horses. 

 Hearing as he thought the call of the Cuckoo 

 emanating from the inmost recesses of the thatch- 

 laden building, prompted him to peep in at the 

 window, and the human Cuckoo was caught in the 

 act! 



With this prelude we may now seriously set our- 

 selves out to answer the question, " Where was 

 the Spring of 1908?" For weeks we patiently 

 waited. We watched the first pieces of Dog's 

 Mercury and the Green Hellebore force their way 

 through the leaf-strewn bed of the woodland; 

 cast longing eyes upon the first pale Primroses of 

 the year; noted the opening of the Sallow blossoms 

 and the Hazel catkins, and hunted for the first 

 nest of the season. So far, so good. Things 

 generally in the country were noticed and noted 

 as decidedly backward. The keen biting winds 

 and the absence of sunshine retarded Nature's 

 progress, but as day succeeded day we hoped — as 

 we had done so often before — that the balmy air 

 of Spring would come and set everything that lives 

 out of doors pulsating and throbbing with life 

 and joy. In the meantime we experienced arctic 

 weather of great severity. 



The feathered tribe made haste to build their 

 nests, some of them in ridiculously exposed situa- 



