44 East and West 
faint promise of an approaching spring, and 
was as instantly lost in the pervading silence 
of the wilderness as the bird itself in the in- 
terlacing twigs of a swamp or the dark foliage 
of the spruce. 
In all the mystery and charm of Nature, 
nothing else is quite comparable with the ad- 
vent of the warblers. Out of a grey world 
they appear as mysteriously as flowers on the 
red maple and the shadbush. It is a blossom- 
ing in feathers in place of petals, and this an- 
nual appearance of life and colour ever affects 
the beholder as one of the most subtle im- 
pressions of Nature, as it is one of the most 
fugitive. For to-day they come and to- 
morrow, it may be, they are gone, and as 
with the wind, who can tell whence or 
whither? 
Not that the woods were wholly austere, as 
before the advent of the warblers there 
appeared the most beautiful nymph of early 
spring, the shadbush, standing all alone 
by solitary ponds in the cold May driz- 
zle, the embodiment—or shall I say the 
spirit—of all that is exquisite and vernal. 
The wilderness has other charms, but not 
again throughout the seasons does it evince 
such loveliness as when, in the prevailing 
