A MARCH CHRONICLE. 



In the Carolinas, no doubt, the fruit-trees are in 

 bloom, and the rice-land is being prepared for the seed. 

 In the mountains of Virginia and in Ohio they are 

 making maple-sugar ; in Kentucky and Tennessee they 

 are sowing oats ; in Illinois they are, perchance, husk- 

 ing the corn which has remained on the stalk in the 

 field all winter. Wild geese and ducks are streaming 

 across the sky from the lower Mississippi toward the 

 great lakes, pausing a while on the prairies, or alighting 

 in the great corn-fields, making the air resound with 

 the noise of their wings upon the stalks and dry shucks 

 as they resume their journey. About this time, or a lit- 

 tle later, in the still spring morning, the prairie-hens or 

 prairie-cocks set up that low musical cooing or crow- 

 ing that defies the ear to trace or locate. The air is 

 filled with that soft, mysterious undertone; and save 

 that a bird is seen here and there flitting low over the 

 ground, the sportsman walks for hours without coming 

 any nearer the source of the elusive sound. 



All over a certain belt of the country the rivers and 

 streams are roily, and chafe their banks. There is a 

 movement of the soils. The capacity of the water to 

 take up and hold in solution the salts and earths, 

 seemed never so great before. The frost has relin- 

 quished its hold, and turned everything over to the 

 water. Mud is the mother now ; and out of it creep 

 the frogs, the turtles, the crawfish. 



In the North how goes the season ? The winter is 

 perchance just breaking up. The old frost-king is just 



