2 2 A MARCH RAMBLE. 



craftsmen, that especially attended to this kind 

 of trees, had suddenly awakened to their duty and 

 besmeared them through the night. What wise 

 designing ! 



It was but yesterday pedestrians were holding on 

 to their ears, the snow was crisp and the windows 

 frosted, so cold was the wind. But some time in 

 the night the spirit of mildness borne along the 

 air, visited the ornamented panes and wiped off 

 the water-color pictures. How grateful to the 

 senses are these rare day-spring messages ! The 

 breath of air moving from the southern Elysian 

 fields infuses new life and quickens the blood. 

 Did I imagine it, or really did my nostrils catch just 

 a whifE of perfume brought by Southern breezes 

 that had swept over millions of tropical flowers ? 



As if I had passed from winter into spring I catch 

 the notes of the yellow-shafted woodpecker. The 

 sun has just thawed him out, and the drops of wet, 

 wet, wet, wet, fall rapidly from his mouth. I hear, 

 too, the voice of a distant relative of the crow ; the 

 blue jay. There is a metallic ring in his larynx 

 that sounds like the far-off blows of a hammer 

 on an anvil ; or, if one stops to analyze it, he discov- 

 ers withal a mournful intonation, as if he invited 

 everybody within earshot to pity him because he 



