AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



THE 

 WAKENING, 



As I cross the fields, climbing a wall here and 

 a fence there, pausing to watch a muskrat slip 

 into the water from a river bank, and to exam- 

 ine a cocoon that is waiting on a bare twig for 

 the warm sunshine to change it from an inanimate 

 thing to an airy, gorgeous creature of wings, I 

 am conscious of the wonderful transformation 

 going on around me, the awakening of the world 

 from its winter lethargy. Its throb is in the grass 

 blades under my feet, in the swelling branch tips, 

 in the new tinge which is daily, hourly, changing 

 the earth's surface, in the very brook whose wat- 

 ers have a quickened, freer flow. It is whisper- 

 ing, rustling, buzzing, singing, calling from all 

 sides, around and above. The very sky has a new 

 color, the earth a warmer glow, as though there were veins through 

 the soil which were quickening into life. 



From a hole in a fence post a bee has crawled dully into the sun. 

 He is weak, attenuated, dull of color from his long winter in the dark- 

 ness of the past, but even as I look, with the warm sunlight resting 

 upon him, he visibly enlarges, and his colors grow brighter and more 

 life like. Presently he quivers his wings, weakly at first, but with 

 more and more strength until he has raised them erect. Then he tests 

 one leg after another, thrusting them out doubtfully, as though they 

 might be numb with cramp, but apparently gaining confidence with 

 each new eiTort. Already he seems like a new creature, and I know 

 that before my return he will have flown away in search of food or 

 others of his kind. 



Along the way are curious little finger-size plants, which rise from 

 the ground and curl their fuzzy yellow-green tips into tight balls. The 

 country folk call them "brakes," perhaps because they break at the 

 slightest touch, and they gather and eat them as "greens." A few 

 more warm days and the tightly closed balls will unwind and straighten 

 out into delicate, feathery fronds of graceful ferns. They are scatter- 

 ed thickly along the way, especially in places that have been burned 

 over the year before, waiting with bowed shoulders and coldly clasped 

 hands for the warm days, which the blue birds have told them will 

 soon come. 



