6 MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 



equivalent therefor, will perhaps be of interest hereafter 

 to some explorer of our cloaca maxima, whenever it is 

 cleansed. 



For many years I have been in the habit of noting 

 down some of the leading events of my embowered soli- 

 tude, such as the coming of certain birds and the like, — 

 a kind of memoires pour servir, after the fashion of White, 

 rather than properly digested natural history. I thought 

 it not impossible that a few simple stories of my winged 

 acquaintances might be found entertaining by persons 

 of kindred taste. 



There is a common notion that animals are better 

 meteorologists than men, and I have little doubt that in 

 immediate weather-wisdom they have the advantage of 

 our sophisticated senses (though I suspect a sailor or 

 shepherd would be their match), but I have seen nothing 

 that leads me to believe their minds capable of erecting 

 the horoscope of a whole season, and letting us know be- 

 forehand whether the winter will be severe or the sum- 

 mer rainless. I more than suspect that the clerk of the 

 weather himself does not always know very long in ad- 

 vance whether he is to draw an order for hot or cold, 

 dry or moist, and the musquash is scarce likely to be 

 wiser. I have noted but two days' difference in the 

 coming of the song-sparrow between a very early and a 

 very backward spring. This very year I saw the linnets 

 at work thatching, just before a snow-storm which 

 covered the ground several inches deep for a number of 

 days. They struck work and left us for a while, no 

 doubt in search of food. Birds frequently perish from 

 sudden changes in our whimsical spring weather of 

 which they had no foreboding. More than thirty years 

 ago, a cherry-tree, then in full bloom, near my window, 

 was covered with humming-birds benumbed by a fall of 

 mingled rain and snow, which probably killed many of 



