THE SPRING RUSH. 



"When the wind comes up from Cuba 



And the birds are on the wing, 

 And my heart is patting juba 

 To the banjo of the spring." 



Hovey. 



Not once has the wind come up from Cuba this sea- 

 son, but the birds are here. Their punctuality always 

 surprises me. The very first arrivals vary according 

 to the temperature. Thus Thoreau records the date 

 of the earliest bluebirds all the way from February 

 24 to March 24 in his Concord. The first spring 

 flowers show the same variation in our land of the 

 lingering snow. But when May comes and presuma- 

 bly settled weather, the same birds appear at practi- 

 cally the same dates, year after year. Old Farmer 

 Leavitt, without whose almanac we could not keep 

 house, would be perfectly safe in writing opposite 

 May 10: "Look out for gold robins and catbirds about 

 this time." I am assuming that all my readers know 

 that the gold robin and the Baltimore oriole are iden- 

 tical, though a few years ago I was walking on a col- 

 lege campus with some members of the faculty, and 

 they did not know. 



