THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS, ` 339 
that promised future blossoms as soon as the warm April rains 
should fall. Like the flowers, the birds come to us suddenly and 
almost unawares; a day ago there were none; to-day, the woods 
and fields are vocal with their music; but, unlike the flowers, 
there was no herald to announce their approach, no presage of 
their coming. Ere we are aware they are with us; before we 
, know it, they are gone. 
On some bright February morning, I go out into brown sere 
meadows, and wander along the banks of a brook, covered here 
and there with dense thickets of tall alders and hornbeams, with 
an undergrowth of blackberries and greenbriars. Yesterday, the 
only inhabitants they contained were tree-sparrows; to-day they 
hold a party of red-winged blackbirds, whose harsh merry notes 
and jolly chatter proclaim their joy at being home again. They 
have come, perhaps, from reedy marshes that line the Virginia 
coast; or, perchance, from Carolina rice-fields; but no man saw 
them on their journey ; silently and unannounced, they came and 
reoccupied their summer haunts. A little later, I visit the same 
wet meadows, and find them frozen at the depth of a few inches, 
though on the surface, the black soil is soft and muddy; then ` 
comes a heavy rainstorm the next day, and on the succeeding 
morning, they are alive with snipe. Or, some morning in May, 
“when the woods are beginning to unfold their green robes and the 
towhee to call from the thickets, I find, here and there, a warbler 
or two; but only one or two, save, now and then a troop of cor- 
onatas. A storm from the south sets in and lasts for a day or 
‘two; and when it has ceased, in the morning, I go out into the 
woods again; and hundreds and thousands of warblers of a dozen 
species are fluttering through the boughs and copses, and lisping 
in the tree-tops. How they came, I know not, nor whence; but 
here they are, where, a day ago, scarce one was to be seen. Two 
days more and nine-tenths of them are gone. 
There are some birds whose migrations are apparent enough. 
In November we see flocks of robins passing south, high up in 
the air, calling to each other as they go. In March, and again, 
late in fall, long trains of crows silently stream across the sky ; 
in September flocks of red-birds wing their way overhead, their 
presence betrayed by their mellow notes. The ducks, geese and 
Cranes, with much noise and gabble, announce their passage 
through the country; and in the later days of autumn, the hawks, 
