VII 
NATURE LEAVES 
I. IN WARBLER TIME 
HIS early May morning, as I walked through 
the fields, the west wind brought to me a sweet, 
fresh odor, like that of our little white sweet violet 
(Viola blanda). It came probably from sugar maples, 
just shaking out their fringelike blossoms, and from 
the blooming elms. For a few hours, when these trees 
first bloom, they shed a decided perfume. It was the 
first breath of May, and very welcome. April has 
her odors, too, very delicate and suggestive, but 
seldom is the wind perfumed with the breath of 
actual bloom before May. I said, It is warbler time; 
the first arrivals of the pretty little migrants should 
benoted now. Hardly had my thought defined itself, 
when before me, in a little hemlock, I caught the 
flash of a blue, white-barred wing; then glimpses of 
a yellow breast and a yellow crown. I approached 
cautiously, and in a moment more had a full view 
of one of our rarer warblers, the blue-winged yellow 
warbler. Very pretty he was, too, the yellow cap, 
the yellow breast, and the black streak through the 
eye being conspicuous features. He would not stand 
to be looked at long, but soon disappeared in a 
near-by tree. 
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