518 Lhe Eastern Snow-Lird. [July, 
THE EASTERN SNOW-BIRD. 
BY REV. SAMUEL LOCKWOOD, PH.D. 
| ees New Jersey, so severe was last winter, that appeal is made 
to “the oldest inhabitant” to adduce a similar experience: 
As is usual with this mythical “ Old Prob.,” he fails to cite an in- 
stance. Albeit the pure white of her “wrap,” nature in her 
snowy deshabille is not altogether lovely. In truth, many of her 
admirers, with a shiver, withdraw from their open-air converse to 
a fire-side communion. It is all very well to talk of coasting and 
skating, and to get into high jinks about “ the tintinnabulation of 
the bells,” meaning that excruciating jangle, yclept “ sleigh 
music,” which has no music in it, unless we thus dignify the 
sonorously uproarious “ gling! glang! glorious!” of that Teuton, 
Hans Breitmann. It may be as a dull man we prefer a toot on 
a gentler even if sadder strain. Leaving out the pangs of pov- 
erty, what shall be said of the keen suffering attendant on out-of 
door industry, when exposure is so pitiless on man and beast! 
And yet this general nudeness is not without advantage of @ 
weird sort to the true naturalist, because of a certain transparency 
which whets the faculties, imparting edge to curiosity and pre- 
cision to observation. All things seem open. The very atmos- 
phere is in sympathy with the naked truth—and even the trees, 
from bole to spray, become ona sudden crystalline. The sight 
is sharper and the hearing keener, and both are farther reaching. 
Last Lord’s Day morning, January 30th, the air was pure, bright 
and still, and the timbre of our village church bells seemed pect” 
liarly fresh, as they pealed forth the hebdomadal summons in the 
pure frosty breath of their brazen throats. Though walking 
briskly, the church-goer looked more thoughtful. He felt him- 
self possessed of an almost mysterious enlargement and refine- 
ment of the senses; for he heard with startling distinctness the 
church bell of a hamlet fully five miles away to the east, and 
with equal clearness his ears touk in the sound of another church 
bell from a village as far away to the west. It was observable, 
too, that both rang in the same tone—but that the ringing at pet 
east was set eight notes, or a full octave higher, than that at the 
west. Did the one think herself eight strides the nearet ~ 
churchly perfection? But fie! Why seek to revive a point 5° 
mooted by the oriental and occidental churches ? 
