516 
RURAL HOURS. 
One can easily understand why the orioles should often 
choose the drooping spray of the elm for their pendulous nests — 
though they build in maples and locusts also — but it is not easy 
to see why so many different tribes should all show such a very 
decided preference for the maples. It cannot be from these trees 
coming into leaf earher than others, since the willows, and pop- 
lars, and lilacs are shaded before them. Perhaps it may be the 
luxuriant foliage of the maple, which throws a thick canopy over 
its limbs. Or it may be the upward inclination of the branches, 
and the numerous forks in the young twigs. Whether the wood 
birds show the same preference, one cannot say. But along the 
roads, and near farm-houses, one observes the same decided par- 
tiality for these trees ; the other day we observed a maple not 
far from a farm-house, with five nests in it, and a whole orchard 
close at hand, untenanted. The sumachs, on the contrary, are 
not in favor ; one seldom sees a nest in their stag-horn branches. 
Neither the growth of their limbs, nor that of their foliage, 
seems to suit the birds. 
Friday, 23d. — Very mild, sunshiny day; quite spring-like. 
We have just now soft, thawing days, and frosty nights, the first 
symptoms of spring. Cocks are crowing, and hens cackling about 
the barn-yards, always cheerful rustic sounds. 
Saturday, 24th. — Very mild and pleasant. The chicadees are 
hopping about among the branches, pretty, cheerful, fearless little 
creatures ; I stood almost within reach of a couple of them, as 
they were gliding about the lower limbs of a sugar-maple, but 
they did not mind me in the least. They are regular tree birds, 
one rarely sees them on the ground. The snow-birds, on the con- 
trary, are half the time running about on the earth. 
