A MAECH CHRONICLE 87 



and with shad from the Southern rivers, and wild 

 ducks are taking the place of prairie hens and quails. 



In the Carolinas, no doubt, the fruit-trees are in 

 bloom, and the rice land is being prepared for the 

 seed. In the mountains of Virginia and in Ohio 

 they are making maple sugar; in Kentucky and 

 Tennessee they are sowing oats; in Illinois they 

 are, perchance, husking the corn which has remained 

 on the stalk in the field all winter. Wild geese 

 and ducks are streaming across the sky from the 

 lower Mississippi toward the great lakes, pausing a 

 while on the prairies, or alighting in the great corn- 

 fields, making the air resound with the noise of 

 their wings upon the stalks and dry shucks as they 

 resume their journey. About this time, or a little 

 later, in the still spring morning, the prairie hens 

 or prairie cocks set up that low, musical cooing or 

 crowing that defies the ear to trace or locate. The 

 air is filled with that soft, mysterious undertone; 

 and, save that a bird is seen here and there flitting 

 low over the ground, the sportsman walks for hours 

 without coming any nearer the source of the elusive 

 sound. 



All over a certain belt of the country the rivers 

 and streams are roily, and chafe their banks. There 

 is a movement of the soils. The capacity of the 

 water to take tip and hold in solution the salt and 

 earths seemed never so great before. The frost has 

 relinquished its hold, and turned everything over to 

 the water. Mud is the mother now; and out of it 

 creep the frogs, the turtles, the crawfish. 



