Song Birds and Water Fowl 



draw. But not less pleasing to an eager 

 naturalist are many other lurking signs, out of 

 the broad highway of the year's advance, 

 which are worthy of brief mention. 



It is often in February when, in panoply of 

 ice and storm, the climax of winter's reign 

 seems to come, and his domination is ap- 

 parently most absolute. Yet at this very in- 

 stant of imagined supremacy, his power is 

 already on the wane. By the middle of this 

 short but rigorous month, spring sends her fleet- 

 winged messenger before her face, and the 

 year's dark age is coming to an end. In an 

 unwonted way the sunlight now begins to make 

 itself conspicuous, both by such a peculiar, 

 general effulgence of the atmosphere as was not 

 observable before, and by the fact that when 

 one walks abroad he finds the sun is tumbling 

 into his eyes in a most peculiar fashion, now 

 pouring his beams directly over the eye-lid's 

 edge, in a blinding way, and again lurking 

 roguishly around the corner of the eye, as if 

 the rays of light were bent on playing hide- 

 and-seek among the lashes. It is true that 

 spring and winter meet in open battle only on 

 the field of March. But even some weeks be- 

 fore, in this peculiar play of sunlight, one can 

 2S4 



