Color in Spring Woods 
nut, but many a good citizen goes to his grave in ignorance 
of what an oak flower looks like or a hickory or walunt 
blossom. 
Now that the buds have burst, what a glory is in all 
the tree tops! We speak of the tender green of spring, 
but that does scant justice to the actual fact. The color 
of the spring woods is nearly as varied if not so brilliant as 
the tints of autumn. The unfolding maples are bronze 
and red; the oaks sometimes a quiet crimson, sometimes a 
creamy yellow, sometimes a brilliant red, as though dipped 
in blood; the birches and poplars and tulip trees an ethe¬ 
real shade of yellow; the hickories a tawny brown. It 
is as though the woods’ first thought on awakening to a 
new year was of the glory of the autumnal evening when 
they fell asleep, and for a moment the memory of that old 
glory suffuses all their being. It is, however, only for a 
moment; almost as we look the delicate tones fade away 
like the colors of the dawn in the sky, and the work-a-day 
garment of green is over them all. 
May 3. —The meadows where the marsh marigold 
grows are quite likely to be vocal nowadays with melan¬ 
choly double whistles long drawn out. You look in vain, 
perhaps, for the source of these plaintive calls, which 
sound first on one side of you and then on another, now at 
your feet and now in the air, until if you are of a nervous 
disposition you are half inclined to believe the place 
haunted. You are, indeed, in a field with meadow larks, 
which are of a color so like the ground whereon they feed 
and nest that they are quite invisible except to the trained 
eye. As you walk, however, the birds rise and fly, display- 
[43] 
