SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 141 
The barn swallow is heard first, followed in a day 
or two by the squeaking of the cliff swallow. The 
chimney swallows, or swifts, are not far behind, and 
remain here, in large numbers, the whole season. 
The purple martins appear in April, as they pass 
north, and again in July and August on their re- 
turn, accompanied by their young. 
The national capital is situated in such a vast 
spread of wild, wooded, or semi-cultivated country, 
and is in itself so open and spacious, with its parks 
and large government reservations, that an unusual 
number of birds find their way into it in the course 
of the season, Rare warblers, as the black-poll, 
the yellow red-poll, and the bay-breasted, pausing 
in May on their northward journey, pursue their 
insect game in the very heart of the town. 
I have heard the veery thrush in the trees near 
the White House; and one rainy April morning, 
about six o’clock, he came and blew his soft, mel- 
low flute in a pear-tree in my garden. The tones 
had all the sweetness and wildness they have when 
heard in June in our deep northern forests. A 
day or two afterward, in the same tree, I heard for 
the first time the song of the ruby-crowned wren, 
or kinglet, the same liquid bubble and cadence 
which characterize the wren-songs generally, but 
much finer and more delicate than the song of any 
other variety known to me; beginning in a fine, 
round, needle-like note, and rising into a full, sus- 
tained warble, —a strain, on the whole, remarkably 
exquisite and pleasing, the singer being all the 
