142 THE BIRDS OF SPRING. 
appear in March would scarce attract attention if ap- 
pearing with the hosts of May, while now the animation 
they afford our fields and roadsides is in agreeable con- 
trast with the dearth of bird life in winter. April brings 
larger additions, and May bursts upon us with such a 
profusion of species, that on all sides we are greeted with 
fluttering, restless wings and lively notes. But the in- 
crease has its intermissions; the first genial period at- 
tracts a few, but through the succeeding colder weather 
their numbers for weeks may scarcely increase, perhaps, 
indeed, if the cold prove quite severe, actually decreasing 
while a following unusually mild term hastens on many 
that seem to have been awaiting a favorable opportunity. 
A cold norther occurring early in May, impedes for days 
the thousands of Warblers and Flycatchers that are ac- 
customed then to migrate. The storm perchance closing 
at nightfall, a mild night ensues, and with the next day’s 
sun the woods are alive with little industrious insect hunt- 
ers, that the day before the most prying observer would 
fail to have detected; they increase with the advance of 
the day, and towards night the collector finds some spe- 
cies common, that he had looked in vain for in the morn- 
ing, and the hedges suddenly become vocal with their 
notes. 
Our limits would not allow us even to enumerate all 
the insectivorous species,—the friends of the orchardist, 
the gardener, the farmer, in short, of our race, —and much 
more to describe their pleasing colors, their inspiriting 
songs, and their hundred interesting peculiarities of habit 
and mode of life; how some hunt their prey, creeping 
among the foliage, others pursue it in the air, or suddenly 
dart upon some unlucky insect as it passes their perch. 
~ Among the woodland species the very names of the 
