18 
RURAL HOURS. 
spring ; there is a great difference in the numbers which visit us 
from year to year ; some seasons they are still very numerous, 
large flocks passing over the valley morning and evening as they 
go out from their general breeding-place in quest of food. Some 
few years ago they selected a wood on a hill, about twenty miles 
from us, for their spring encampment, making as usual great 
havoc among the trees and bushes about them ; at that time they 
passed over the valley in its length, large unbroken flocks several 
miles in extent succeednig each other. There have not been so 
many here since that season. But the numbers we saw then 
were nothing to the throngs that visited the valley annually in its 
earliest history, actually darkening the air as they swept along. 
It seems their nature to fly rather low, but they have grown 
more wily now, and often take a high flight ; frequently, however, 
they just graze the hill-tops, and the sportsmen, after observing 
their usual course of flight morning and evening, go out and 
station themselves on some hill, shooting the birds as they pass over 
their heads. The young, or squabs, as they are called, are in 
great request as a delicacy in spring ; they are very tender, of 
course, and generally very plump, for the little creatures begin to 
fatten the moment they break through the shell, and are soon in 
good order. They are not thought very healthy food, however, 
when eaten repeatedly in |uccession. There is a tradition that the 
Indians, at the time of the year when they lived chiefly on these 
birds, were not in a healthy condition. 
Tuesday, 2%th. — The great final spring thaw going on. Our 
winter deluge of snow is sinking into the earth, softening her 
bosom for the labors of the husbandman, or running oft' into the 
swollen streams, toward the sea. Cloudy sky with mist on the 
