wrapped-! n-paper note of which I have 
spoken before. 
Suddenly the two song’s wore cut off 
-abruptly, and some English sparrows on 
a neighboring house began to scold. as 
they do at a oat, I was sufficiently well 
acquainted with bird language to in¬ 
terpret this as “hawk in sight.” A mo¬ 
ment later a male sparrow hawk shot 
i past me, very low, perhaps ten fee-t 
from the ground, and directly over the 
Held where many Savannah sparrows 
were feeding. The fields was covered 
with weeds, and over -these the hawk 
; hovered, his body station-ary and his 
j wings beating rapidly. He was a beauti¬ 
ful creature; his blue-gray head, red¬ 
dish brown back and black-banded tall 
were all bright in the sunlight. Then 
, he dropped suddenly Into the weeds and 
Savannah sparrows shot out in all direc¬ 
tions. They had been silent and immova- 
i ble, crouching close to the ground, in- 
1 stinctively trusting to their brown- 
streaked plumage to hide -them even 
from a hawk’s eye. For a moment I 
•thought the little hawk had failed, for 
the weeds hid him from sight; but after 
a few seconds, during which he had 
probably been biting his victim’s neck, 
he rose and flew heavily, with -a sparrow 
in his claws, to the top of an apple 
tree, where he bgan at once to tear and 
devour his prey. 
The sparrow hawk on the whole has an ex¬ 
cellent reputation. The Department of Ag¬ 
riculture declares that grasshoppers and 
mice are his staple diet, but it is evidently 
not safe for Savannah sparrows to trust too 
implicitly to the reports of the Department 
of Agriculture. 
Personally I prefer a tardy spring. These 
next few days are in a way the most ex¬ 
quisite in all the year. The clean-cut lines 
which the -branches have shown against the 
winter sky 'are softened now by the un¬ 
folding buds, and any day the ground be¬ 
neath may be flecked with the first tiny 
squares of shade. The dwellers In the cities 
have the advantage now oyer the country 
folk; the forsythlaa and the Norway maples 
are masses of color, and the very side¬ 
walks are crimson with the fallen flowers 
of the red maple. On the lawns near a 
pistillate Norway maple an observant eye 
may note at this time a curious phenome¬ 
non. The brown maple keys which have 
lain flat all winter, begin slowly to lift their 
broad wings Into the air till they stand 
erect; sometimes a whole lawn is dotted 
with the slanting keys, like a fleet of sail¬ 
boats all on the same tack. A few days 
later the swelling cotyledons force oft the 
empty hood and stand revealed. 
While the less hardy birds are still de¬ 
laying In the South, the robins have al¬ 
ready completed their nests -and some have 
begun to lay. 
Even among bird lovers I And that opin¬ 
ions vary considerably as to the desira¬ 
bility of the robin In the community. The 
chorus with which his tribe hail the com¬ 
ing dawn seems to have less and less charm 
for light sleepers the earlier It begins. 
Others complain of his restless callnotes 
before settling down for the night, but the 
most unexpected criticism came from 
a 'tender-hearted friend of mine who was 
always annoyed, he said, by the unmusi¬ 
cal notes which a pair of robins utter when 
a cat is carrying off their young. He 
protested that he often felt like raising the 
window and calling out, “Let the brats 
go, and be quiet.” But then toe is a bach¬ 
elor. 
Nature About Boston 
VIII. v ■ - 
BY RALPH HOFFMANN 
It has been suggested to me that a flip¬ 
pant statement of mine in the Transcript 
of May 2 may bring upon my head the guilt 
of homicide. To avoid any such possibility 
let me hasten to publish the fact that the 
swampy thicket between Concord avenue 
and Fresh Pond, before which stands the 
sign warning people of danger, contains a 
pool which the park authorities have in 
vain tried to fill up. When I said that I 
had examined every rod of ground for the 
pheasant’s nest I was guilty of inaccuracy, 
if the wo HI ground be taken to include 
water. I did not set foot In the aforesaid 
pool, and I hereby warn all fellow-ornithol¬ 
ogists that if they enter the thicket It is at 
the peril of their lives. 
Since May 5 I have seen all the new birds 
at second hand. Some of my young friends 
who can still afford to belong to the four 
o'clock In the morning school of ornithology 
have kept me posted on the arrival of the 
birds, and I give below their list made in 
Cambridge and Belmont. They report only 
one or two of each species, Instead of the 
flood which will be on us with the first 
warm wave. 
Yellow-throated vireo (one, no others since).May 2 
Catbird (one). " 6 
Bobolink . " 9 
Northern yellow-throat (one)...,. “ 9 
Northern water tlirush... “ 9 
Veery . *• l(j 
Ovenblrd . " io 
Rose-breasted grosbeak...... .. " io 
Chestnut-sided warbler . .. •• 12 
Nashville warbler . “ 12 I 
Parula warbler. “ 12 I 
Kingbird . *• 12 1 
Orioles . ** 13 
I believe that for twenty years orioles 
have never before been so late. If 
we only had access to all the old 
diaries in the country attics, some¬ 
body’s great-grandfather has doubtless 
recorded them in some far off May 
at an equally late date. No one won- 
dera at their delay. If even the robins sat 
through Saturday’s snowstorm in sullen 
dejection, what must the few chebeas that 
are here and the other insect-eating birds 
have thought of it 
One of my neighbors pretends to be vast¬ 
ly entertained by the eagerness with which 
naturalists pry Into the affairs of the birds 
