WHERE FEBRUARY IS SPRING 49 



under rock and log, I caught sight of a 

 winter wren. He had claimed an off- 

 shoot brook of the creek, and alone he 

 had remained in winter quarters. As I 

 passed his domain he sang a snatch from 

 his song, and all the woods looked green. 

 I left the creek where a stone bridge 

 crossed it, and from a back garden of a 

 tumble-down house I heard a song that 

 I recognized as belonging to a bird I had 

 once heard trying to lift his voice above 

 the tumult of songs in a city bird store. 

 A pair of cardinals were sole proprietors 

 of this deserted garden, and they were 

 worthy of a garden to themselves. One's 

 eyes, in the North, are rarely filled with 

 such an animated bit of color, and the 

 song was worth a long walk to hear. 

 About the old house and bridge, bird- 

 life seemed to centre. Tree sparrows were 

 singing softly as they bathed in an over- 

 flowed hollow and a single white-throat 

 scarcely lifted his own song above his 

 breath ; nevertheless, he was to me a bit 

 of Maine grafted into the South. I heard 

 a faint scratching beneath a mountain lau- 

 rel (Kalmia latifolid) thicket and stooping 

 to look for the performer, hoping to find 

 4 



