April the morning of the year, as March was its twi

light, that uncertain time when the clouds seem like exiled wanderers over the blue field of light, hurrying in disorganized cohorts to some place of rest or dissolution daily flatters us with hopes which she seems reluctant to fulfil. But every invisible agent of nature is silently weaving a drapery of verdure to spread around the footsteps of the more lovely month that is soon to arrive. We see the beginnings of this work of resurrection in thousands of small tufted rings of herbage scattered over the fields, and daily multiplying, until every knoll is crowned with blue, white, and crimson flowers that will join to gladden the heyday of spring.

When at length the south-wind calls together his vernal messengers, and leads them forth in the sunshine to their work of gladness, the frosty conqueror resigns his sceptre, and beauty springs up in the place of desolation. The bee rebuilds his honeyed masonry, the swelling buds redden in the maples, and every spray of the forest and orchard is brightened with a peculiar gloss that gives character to the vernal tinting of the woods. The ices that have bound the earth for half the year are dissolved; the mountain snows are spread out in fertilizing lakes upon the plains, and the redwing pipes his garrulous notes over the abiding-place of the trillium and the meadow cowslip. The lowlands, so magnificent in autumn, when glowing with a profusion of asters and golden-rods, are now whitened with this sheet of glistening waters, put into constant agitation by multitudes of frogs tumbling about in the shallows while engaged in their croaking frolics.

April is the month of brilliant skies constantly shadowed by dark, rapidly moving clouds, of brown meadows and plashy foot-paths. The barren hills are velveted with moss of a perfect greenness, delicately shaded with a

profusion of glossy purple stems, like so many hairs, terminated with the peculiar flower of the plant; and long stripes of verdure mark the progress of the new-born rivulets, as they pursue their irregular course down the hillside into the valleys. But the damp grounds, frequently almost impassable from standing water, are interspersed with little dry knolls covered with mosses and lycopodiums, where the early flowers of spring delight to nestle, embosomed in their soft verdure. Upon these evergreen mounds the fringed polygala spreads a beautiful hue of crimson; and while gathering its flowers, we discover, here and there, a delicate wood-anemone, with its mild eyes not yet open to the light of day. But so few flowers are abroad that the bee when it comes forth in quest of honey must feel like one who is lost and wandering in space. It can revel only in gardens where the sweetscented flowers of another clime spread abroad a perfume that is but a false signal of the weather of its adopted climate.

The odors that perfume the air in the latter part of this mouth are chiefly exhaled from the unfolding buds of the flowering trees and shrubs, and from pine woods. The balm of Gilead and other poplars, while the scales are dropping from their hibernacles, to loose the young leaves and flowers from their confinement, afford the most grateful of odors, and are a part of the peculiar incense of spring. But there are exhalations from the soil in April, when the ploughman is turning his furrows, that afford an agreeable sensation of freshness, almost like fragrance, resembling the scent of the cool breezes, which, wafted over beds of dulses and sea-weeds, when the tide is low, often rise up suddenly in the heat of summer.

As April advances, the familiar bluebirds are busy among the hollows of old trees, where they rear their young secure from depredation. Multitudes of them, seen

usually in pairs and seldom in flocks, are distributed over the orchards, responding to one another in their few plaintive, but cheerful, notes; and their fine azure plumage is beautifully conspicuous as they flit among the branches of the trees. The voice of the robin resounds in all familiar places, and the song of the linnet is heard in the groves which have lately echoed but with the screaming of the jay and the cawing of the raven. Young lambs, but lately ushered into life, may be seen with various antic motions, trying the use of their limbs, that seem to run wild with them before they have hardly ascertained their powers; and parties of little children, some with baskets, employed in gathering salads, others engaged in picking the scarlet fruit of the checkerberry, will often pause from their occupations with delight to watch the frolics of these happy creatures.

The small beetles that whirl about on the surface of still waters have commenced their gambols anew, and fishes are again seen darting about in the streams. A few butterflies, companions of the crocus and the violet, are flitting in irregular courses over the plains; the spider is hanging by his invisible thread from the twigs of the orchard trees, and insects are swarming in sunny places. The leaves of the last autumn, disinterred from the snow, are once more rustling to the winds and to the leaping motions of the squirrel. Small tortoises are basking in the sunshine upon the logs that extend into the pool; and as we draw near we see their glistening armor, as with awkward haste they plunge into the water. The ices which had accumulated around the sea-shore have disappeared, and the little fishes that congregate near the edges of the salt-water creeks make a tremulous motion of the water, as upon our sudden approach they dart away from the shallows into the deeper sea.

BIRDS OF THE GARDEN AND ORCHARD.

II.

THE VIREO.

IN the elms on Boston Common, and in all the lofty trees of the suburbs, as well as in the country villages, are two little birds whose songs are heard daily and hourly, from the middle of May until the last of summer. They are usually concealed among the highest branches of the trees, so that it is not easy to obtain sight of them. These birds are two of our Warbling Flycatchers, or Vireos; one of which I shall designate as the Brigadier, the other as the Preacher. I give below the song of the Brigadier:

The notes of this little invisible musician are few, simple, and melodious, and, being often repeated, they are very generally known even to those who are unacquainted with the bird. At early dawn, at noon, and at sunset its song is constantly repeated with no very long intervals, resembling, though delivered with more precision, the song of the Linnet or Purple Finch. In my boyhood, when I had no access to a book descriptive of our birds, and very seldom killed one for any purpose, I had learned nearly all the songs that were heard in the garden or wood, without knowing the physical