BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 



Icterus galbula CouES. 



Plate XXX. Fig. 1 and 2. 



The sun is on the waters, and the air 



Breathes with a. stirring energy; the plants 



Expand their leayes, and swell their buds, and blow. 



Wooing the eye, and stealing on the soul 



With perfume and with beauty. Life awakes ; 



Its wings are waving, and its fins at play 



Glancing from out the streamlets, and the voice 



Of love and joy is warbled in the grove. 



Percival. 



IS^HE SPLENDOR of our North American autumn landscape has always been a 

 |y favorite theme with the writers on the beauties of Nature. More exhilerating 

 and anticipating, however, is the beauty of the woodlands in spring. Although little 

 notice has been taken by our writers of this beauty, the true lover of Nature, who 

 is accustomed to w^orship in her inner temple, recognizes the subtle charm of our 

 woods at this season, and realizes the variety and harmony of the apparel w^hich oiir 

 trees put on to celebrate the return of the vernal season. No other time of the year 

 exhibits so striking a contrast in the appearance of different species of forest trees. Nature 

 alone knows how to blend various distinct forms and many distinct shades of colors 

 in one harmonious whole. The forests of Europe, composed of a few species only, are 

 far inferior to the woodlands of our own country, composed, as they are, of a very 

 large variety of magnificent species. In May from, the top of a northern hill, or better, 

 from one of the high summits of the southern AUeghanies, "over which is spread the 

 most varied, luxuriant, and magnificent collection of deciduous trees in the world," may 

 be seen the American forest in its most charming aspect, the outlines of individual trees 

 veiled but not hidden, by the opening leaves, which vary on each species in form and 

 color. The opening of the buds is a sensation of indescribable beauty to the cultivated 

 mind. This first flush of woodland beauty lasts only a few days, but they are precipes 

 days to the lover of Nature. How exquisitely charming are the horse chestnuts, the 

 maples, and especially the wild plums, cherries, hawthorns, oaks, and hickories in their 

 misty spring apparel ! The constrast in the mixed woods, where white pines are inter- 

 spersed among a large number of species of deciduous trees, is beautiful beyond 

 description.* 



At this time the brilliant flowers of the red maple celebrate the coming of spring. 

 This tree is certainly one of the most beautiful objects to be seen in our woods, when 

 covered with fruit, which varies in different individuals in brilliancy. In the Southern 

 States, where this tree grows with particularly large and brilliant fruit, among the most 

 magnificent trees of our country, the evergreen magnolias, the dense hollies and finely 

 formed laurel cherries and other broad-leaved evergreens, it makes a note of color in the 

 landscape and a sensation on the mind which time does not dull. Among this variety 

 of budding trees almost all colors can be observed, but the shades of red, bronze, green, 



" Compare "Garden and Forest," Vol. V, 1872, p. 266. 



