SPJtING. 31 



tramps, hang around the great oak-tree upon the knoll, and watch to see 

 what they can steal Down through the meadow the gurgling stream 

 babbles as of old, and along its fretted banks the alder thickets are hang- 

 ing full with drooping catkins swinging at every breeze. The glossy wil- 

 low-buds throw off their coat of fur, and plume themselves in their wealth 

 of inflorescence, lighting up the brook-side with a yellow glow, and exhal- 

 ing a fresh, delicious perfume. Here, too, we hear the rattling screech of 

 the swooping kingfisher, as with quick beats of wing he skims along the 

 surface of the stream, and with an ascending glide settles upon the over- 

 hanging branch above the ripples. All these and a thousand more I viv- 

 idly recall from the memory of that New England spring ; but sweetest of 

 all its manifold surprises was that crowning consummation, that miracle 

 of a single night, bringing on countless wings through the early morning 

 mist the welcome chorus of the returning flocks of birds. How they 

 swarmed the orchard and the elms, where but yesterday the bluebird held 

 his sway ! Now we see the fiery oriole in his gold and jetty velvet flash- 

 ing in the morning sun, and robins without number swell their ruddy 

 throats in a continuous roundelay of song. The pert cat -bird in his 

 Quaker garb is here, and with flippant jerk of tail and impertinent mew 

 bustles about among the arbor-vitaes, where even now are remnants of his 

 last year's nest. The puffy wrens, too, what saucy, sputtering little bursts 

 of glee are theirs as they strut upon the rustic boxes in the maples ! The 

 fields are vocal with their sweet spring medley, in which the happy carols 

 of the linnets and the song sparrows form a continuous pastoral. Now 

 we hear the mellow bell of the wood thrush echoing from some neighbor- 

 ing tree, and all intermingled with the chatter and the gossip of the mar- 

 tens on their lofty house. Birds in the sky, birds in the trees and on the 

 ground, birds everywhere, and not a silent throat among them ; but from 

 far and near, from mountain-side and meadow, from earth and sky, uniting 

 in a happy choral of perpetual jubilee. 



Down in the moist green swamp lot the yellow cowslips bloom along 

 the shallow ditch, and the eager farmer's wife fills her basket with the 

 succulent leaves she has been watching for so long ; for they'll tell you 

 in New England that " they ain't noth'n' like caowslips for a mess o' 

 greens." Near by we see the frog pond, with lush growth of arrow leaves 

 and pickerel weed, and flat blades of blue-flag just starting from the boggy 

 earth. Half submerged upon a lily pad, close by the water's edge, an ugly 

 toad sits watching for some winged morsel for that ample mouth of his. 



