2 go Field and Forest Ra?nbles. 



" (27th.) Ruby-throated humming-bird is commencing to 

 show itself. East winds and warm showers, trees budding 

 rapidly. Grass and plants springing up. (30//Z.) Night jar 

 (C. Virginianus), and with it legions of warblers of all sorts, 

 are coming in daily. Ice still encrusts the sides of wells, 

 and the deeper alluvium continues hard and frozen. Birds 

 are setting to pair as soon as they arrive." 



"June \st. — Sea Trout (S. Canadensis) .coming up the 

 rivers, and also such of the brook trout (S.fonlinalis) as go to 

 salt water. (6tk) Leaves of the maples and hard wood trees, 

 scarcely out. The .white and blue violets ( V. blanda et 

 palustris). Fern fronds bursting rapidly from their buds — 

 ' fiddle-heads/ as they are named — are greedily devoured as 

 substitutes for green vegetables, to which the residents have 

 been strangers for many months. The dandelion, Indian 

 turnip, trillium, and anemone in full flower. (10th.) Ruffed 

 partridge hatching, males 'drumming' all day and night 

 over the forests. The elm and ash still leafless. Vegetation 

 advancing with amazing rapidity. (i$tk.) We have stridden 

 into a tropical summer during the last ten days. All ani- 

 mated objects are exulting in the delightful weather. The 

 Carolina waxwing is coming into the forests in great num- 

 bers. (i$th.) The striped bass playing on the surface, and the 

 Indians and Europeans are spearing them on the St. John. 

 (27th.) Passenger pigeon is putting in an appearance, but not 

 in the numbers of former years, when, according to the narra- 

 tives of old settlers, enormous flocks assembled in the buck- 

 wheat fields, and crowded the trees round the settlements, 

 bearing down the very branches, and were slaughtered by 

 thousands to feed pigs. Probably the diminution is in part 

 owing to this cause, and to the extension of agriculture." 



"July. — Snipe and woodcock breeding. The black fly 

 (Simtdum molestiuri), mosquitoes, midges, and bot-flies very 

 annoying in the forests for the last few weeks." 



" One of the greatest obstacles to wilderness wanderings in 



