6o LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 



Nature's temples. A steeping process is now 

 going on, and the balsam-laden vapors seem health- 

 ful to breathe. As I walk among the trees I catch 

 for the first time the shrill, small, tin-whistle voice 

 of the black-throated green warbler, saying " Few- 

 few, few-day-few." He seems to make it an espe- 

 cial duty, a business which engages his whole care 

 and attention, to visit every tree and branch, and 

 by the brief ceremony of head-lifting and religious 

 chant, to dedicate each anew to the sacred use of 

 song. The melody has a peculiar fitness and 

 quality to these evergreens and seems to regulate 

 and put them in good order once more, after being 

 for so long a time void of cheerfulness. 



How elegant he appears in the midst of these 

 common seed-eaters ! his voice has the true sylvan 

 quality, and his delicate feet never touch the vul- 

 gar earth. He is a bird of the boughs and spray ; 

 a Laureate singer that has appeared, as if by acci- 

 dent, in the society of these mobbish groundlings. ■ 



