MARCH. 
IN THE ORCHARD. 
HERE was a new voice in the orchard 
since yesterday, and an old one had gone 
from the woods. 
A harsh and querulous screech, which 
throughout autumn and winter had rung 
through coppice and woodland, reviling every 
one impartially, and as impartially reviled, 
had upon an evening vanished ; and upon the 
next morning, above the howling of the wind, 
rang a wild, defiant song. 
No one in his senses would have connected 
the shy and recluse screecher with the bold, 
blithe optimist of the orchard song. But so 
it was; the screech and the song came from 
the same bird—the same individual bird, I 
mean. 
On the top of the highest of the row of 
poplars which sheltered the orchard, clinging 
on like a sailor to a ‘cross-tree’ in a gale, 
clung a big, grayish-brown bird with a black- 
spotted breast, singing. 
The wonder of his being there at all was 
overshadowed by the greater wonder of his 
