42 



BIRD 8 AND FLOWERS. 



their plaintive whistle, piercing sweet, "Spring is 

 here ! Spring is here ! ' 7 ? They abound on our mead- 

 ows, but you may spend a whole afternoon there with- 

 out getting a good look at one. Then suddenly sev- 

 eral brown backs with white outer tail-feathers may 

 rise in front of you with heavy, awkward flight, propel 

 themselves a little way, and settle down again. The 

 meadowlark has learned by sad experience not to ex- 

 pose his bright yellow breast with its black crescent 

 to the casual stranger. Now and then I have seen 

 them stretching their lean heads up through the grass, 

 apparently standing on tiptoe, with their waistcoats 

 gleaming golden as a dandelion. 



Let us wander out to Fort Eddy and sit in the 

 shade of the ice-house. The pond in front of us is 

 one of the many old beds of the river, the track which 

 the wayward Merrimack leaves of its wanderings. We 

 are told that a few years ago a snowy owl drifted 

 down from the Arctic regions and made his home in 

 this ice-house all summer, going in and out by an 

 opening under the peak of the roof. His tribe are 

 occasionally seen here in winter. The only pair of 

 house wrens I have ever found in Concord were rear- 

 ing their brood in one of the joists supporting the ice 

 slide. There was such a nestful that I hoped we 



