APRIL, 
88 
F, — No : you are thinking of the Snow Buntings, a bird 
of a different genus^ Ember iza, from which this may be 
easily distinguished by its colour : it being of a dark slate 
colour^ with a very lights almost white, bill;, the contrast of 
which with the nearly black head, makes it a very marked 
bird. It is here vulgarly called the Chip-bird. This Frin^ 
gilla does not winter with us ; I believe its name of Snow- 
bird is derived from its appearing in Pennsylvania about the 
time of first snow. It is the earliest comer of our spring 
visitants, usually arriving a day or two before the Song Spar- 
row. It is of a more elegant shape than most of its tribe. 
C. — How very pleasant it is to listen to the warbling, 
after the long, dull silence of winter. 
F. — I never hear the song of birds under any circum- 
stances, without feeling my spirits raised, my heart glad- 
dened, and filled with delightful emotions. It is not so 
much the song itself, as the thousand associations of time, 
place, and circumstances, which are at once conjured up : it 
brings the verdant meadow, the blossomed hedgerow, or the 
softened sunbeams playing through the leafy trees, with the 
happy, gleeful days long gone by. I know not how it is, 
but on looking back on days past and gone, in which, at the 
time, sorrow was at least as prominent as joy, — they seem 
stripped of all that was painful, and the pleasing and happy 
circumstances connected with them seem to stand out in bold 
relief, and give the prevailing hue to the picture. In this 
case, too, 
" 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, 
And clothes the mountain in its azure hue." 
C. — But independently of association, there is something 
inherently delightful in the warbling of birds : the sense of 
hearing is gratified with melody; and it is surely not a little 
thing to consider it as an instance of the benevolence of God in 
