whether they had found any mayflower in 
blossom yet, and therefore waited before 
the schoolhouse till school should be out. 
The teacher must have been unusually 
sensible, and not afraid of fresh air, for 
the doors had been left open, and very 
cheerful sounds of question and answer 
came out as I waited. Presently a little 
group who had been dismissed early passed 
me, each carrying a drawing of a bluebird, 
which he or she had colored that day, and 
as a special prize, a coffee house leaf¬ 
let with a bright scarlet tanager on the 
cover, donated by the village grocer. Chil¬ 
dren in West Townsend must be differently 
constituted from the ones that I know, for 
as they drove away in a farm wagon, they 
all preceded to extract and devour luncheon 
from their baskets. The children that I am 
most intimate with have been known to 
eat their luncheon on their way to school; 
to eat any on their way from school would 
be impossible. 
I found a few blossoms of mayflower on 
a sunny slope in West Groton; otherwise 
' I could not see that either the flowers or 
the birds showed any advance in the sea¬ 
son. There was almost no sign of spring 
in the general aspect of the trees and 
bushes. By looking closely at the banks, 
one could see the violet leaves pushing 
above the swampy soil, and once we passed 
a lusty roll of hellebore, half a foot above 
the mud. Hazel and alder catkins, of 
course, hung limp, and every fallen swamp 
maple was red with buds. But the distant 
hillsides were like winter landscapes, ex¬ 
cept for the absence of snow. There was 
none of that mist of delicate color which 
the next warm wave will bring out in th« 
birches. 
Na tube About Bos ton 
vi. 
BY RALPH HOFF'MANN 
The birds are here, for all the season’s late; 
They take the sun’s height an' don’ never 
wait; 
Soon'z he officially declares It's spring 
Their light hearts lift ’em on a north’ard wing. 
The buds, 'too, in spite of the continued 
chill winds, have been yielding slowly to an 
irresistible force. The apple twigs have 
been tipped with gray for a fortnight; and 
during the last week these gray points have 
unfolded, and here and there broadened into 
green. The wild cherry growing close to 
some low wall is half in leaf; the plants 
that are closest to the bosom of the earth 
are the first t,o feel its new warmth. Last 
Sunday houstonia, five-finger, the little blue 
violet (V. ovata), wild strawberry and ane- | 
mone were still in bud; by the end of the J 
week they were all in flower. 
During the night of Monday, April 22, 
toads were trilling in every little pool and 
ditch. Their music, like that of the tree- 
crickets in late summer, forms an undertone 
to all the other sounds, varying continually 
in pitch, as some higher pipe is struck or, i 
lying away at last, is succeeded by a 
neighbor in a lower key. 
To many people the rhythmic beat of the 
crickets is a mournful sound, presaging the 
approach of autumn; the trilling of the 
toads, however, ought to take its place with 
the piping of the hylas as a good omen, fore¬ 
telling the arrival of spring migrants. In 
Japan the awakening of the toads would be 
celebrated in song. 
On this 22d of April they began trilling 
after a day of strong southwest wind, so 
that it was easy to prophesy that the birds 
would take advantage of the wind to make 
another station on their northward journey. 
When you can see new birds on your way 
to the train, there has surely been a flight. 
I had hardly stepped outside my gate Tues¬ 
day morning when I caught the fine, almost 
rasping, preliminary notes of a ruby-crowned 
kinglet, and then the gay little theme which 
he repeats twice or three times in the 
middle of his song. It is a performance that 
makes one laugh for pure pleasure, but it 
seems to me to belong to the class of songs 
which depend on their sweetness of tone and 
skill in execution for the pleasure which 
they give rather flian on the tenderness of 
depth of feeling which they arouse. 
With -the _ ruby-crowns had come yellow- 
rumped (or myrtle) warblers, and evidently 
a great Increase in the number of yellow 
palm warblers and hermit thrushes. Both 
of the latter have, been seen earlier, but I 
saw my first Ti&sday morning, three or j 
four of each. Barn swallows were also here 
on Tuesday morning, though I saw none till 
Thursday. 
The fox sparrows, which had been dimin¬ 
ishing in numbers for several days, ap¬ 
parently took the same occasion to go on 
with their northern journey. I heard my 
last Monday morning. Snowbirds and tree 
sparrows are still here, and in Cambridge, 
at least there has been for a fortnight an 
invasion of pine finches. From nearly every 
yard where there are Norway spruces I 
have caught the canary-like call note, and 
often a wheezy sound, like the music which 
children extract from a comb covered with 
tissue paper. One bird gave a little exhibi¬ 
tion in the air, singing and circling about in 
the manner of gold finches in summer. A 
single red crossbill, feeding in the Scotch 
pines in the Harvard Observatory grounds, 
seemed to have lost his immediate kinsfolk, 
and to have joined the pine finches. 
In a former letter I speculated as to thq 
extent of the fox sparrow invasion. That it 
extended well up the coast of Maine is 
shown by an interesting letter which I have 
received from Damariscotta, and from which 
I give an extract below. I take this occa¬ 
sion to say that it will always give me great 
pleasure to hoar from observers who happen 
to be readers of this column* The letter is 
as follows: “March 30th, very large flocks 
of the fox sparrows and juncos appeared in 
this village, the former filling the air with 
song, especially at six A. M. I gave them 
grass seed which they ate, then tried hemp 
and canary seed, and finally found they 
wo«ld eat bread crumbs, cooked potato, 
rice, apple and even baked beans; In fact al¬ 
most everything. I counted 150 feeding at 
one time, and there were more. Among a 
flock of fifty or more, which came under my 
dining-room window, and were eating all 
day, were half a dozen song sparrows and ; 
two tree sparrows, the others fox sparrows 
and juncos. The English sparrows were 
