wander over the village outskirts, will rest upon hundreds of young children, on a sunny afternoon, who have left their active sports to gather them and weave them into garlands, or use them as talismans with which they have associated many interesting conceits. Soon after this the fields appear in the fulness of their glory. Wild geraniums in the borders of the woods and copses, white and yellow violets, ginsengs, bellworts, silverweeds, and cinquefoils bring up the rear in the procession of May. During all this time the flowers of the houstonia, which have been very aptly chosen as the symbols of innocence, beginning in the latter part of April with a few scanty blossoms, grow every day more and more abundant, until their myriads resemble a thin but interminable wreath of snowflakes, distributed over the hills and pastures.

If we now look upon the forest, we shall observe a manifest connection between the tints of the half-developed spring foliage and those observed in the decline of the year. The leaves of nearly all the trees and shrubs that are brightly colored in autumn present a similar variety of tints in their plaited foliage in May. It is these different tendencies of all the various species that afford the woods their principal charm during this month. It seems, indeed, to be the design of nature to foreshow, in the infancy of the leaves, some of those habits that mark both their maturity and their decline, by giving them a faint shade of the colors that distinguish them in the autumn.

Though we cannot find in May those brilliant colors among the leaves of the forest-trees which are the crowning glory of autumn, yet the present month is more abundant in contrasts than any other period, and these increase in beauty and variety until about the first of June. In early May, set apart from the general nakedness of the woods, may be seen here and there a clump or a row of

willows full of bright yellow aments, maples with buds, blossoms, and foliage of crimson, and interspersed among them junipers, hemlocks, and other evergreens, that stand out from their assemblages like natives of another clime. As the month advances, while these contrasts remain, new ones are daily appearing as one tree after another comes into flower, each exhibiting a tint peculiar not only to the species, but often to the individual and the situation, until hardly two trees in the whole wood are quite alike in color.

As the foliage ripens, the different shades of green become more thoroughly blended into a single uniform tint. But ere the process is completed the fruit-trees open their blossoms and bring a new spectacle of contrasts into view. Peach-trees, with their pale crimson flowers, that appear before the leaves, and stand in flaming rows along the fences, like burning bushes; pear-trees, with corols perfectly white, internally fringed with brown anthers, like long dark eyelashes, that give them almost the countenance of life; cherry-trees, with their white flowers enveloped in tufts of foliage, occupied by the oriole and the linnet; and apple-trees, with flowers of every shade between a bright crimson or purple and a pure white, - all come forth one after another to welcome the birthday of June.

During the last week in May, were you to stand on an eminence that commands an extensive view of the country, you would be persuaded that the prospect is far more magnificent than at midsummer. At this time you look not upon individuals but upon groups. Before you lies an ample meadow, nearly destitute of trees save a few elms standing in equal majesty and beauty, combining in their forms the gracefulness of the palm with the grandeur of the oak; here and there a clump of pines, and long rows of birches, willows, and alders bordering the streams

that glide along the valley, and displaying every shade of green in their foliage. In all parts of the prospect, separated by square fields of tillage of lighter and darker verdure, according to the nature of their crops, you behold numerous orchards, some, on the hillside, receiving the direct beams of the sun; others, on level ground, exhibiting their shady rows with their flowers just in that state of advancement that serves to show the budding trees, which are red and purple, in beautiful opposition to the fullblown trees, which are white. Such spectacles of flowering orchards are seen in all parts of the country, as far as the eye can reach along the thinly inhabited roadsides and farms.

The air at this time is scented with every variety of perfumes, and every new path in our rambling brings us into a new atmosphere as well as a new prospect. It is during the prevalence of a still south-wind that the herbs and flowers exhale their most agreeable odors. Plants generate more fragrance in a warm air; and if the wind. is still and moist, the odors, as they escape, are not so widely dissipated, being retained near the ground by mixing with the dampness of the atmosphere. Hence the time when the breath of flowers is sweetest is during a calm, when the weather is rather sultry, and while the sunbeams are tinged with a purple and ruddy glow by shining through an almost invisible haze. A blind man might then determine, by the perfumes of the air, as he was led over the country, whether he was in meadow or upland, and distinguish the character of the vegetation.

Now let the dweller in the city who, though abounding in riches, sighs for that contentment which his wealth has not procured, come forth from the dust and confinement of the town and pay a short visit to Nature in the country. Let him come in the afternoon, when the de

clining sun casts a beautiful sheen upon the tender leaves of the forest, and while thousands of birds are chanting, in full chorus, from an overflow of those delightful sensations that fill the hearts of all creatures who worship Nature in her own temples and do obedience to her beneficent laws. I would lead him to a commanding view of this lovely prospect, that he may gaze awhile upon those scenes which he has so often admired on the canvas of the painter, displayed here in all their living beauty. While the gles are wafting to his senses the fragrance of the surrounding groves and orchards, and the notes of the birds are echoing all around in harmonious confusion, I would point out to him the neat little cottages which are dotted about like palaces of content in all parts of the landscape. I would direct his attention to the happy laborers in the field, and the neatly dressed, smiling, ruddy, and playful children in their green and flowery enclosures and before the open doors of the cottages. I would then ask him if he is still ignorant of the cause of his own unhappiness, or of the abundant sources of enjoyment which Nature freely offers for the participation of all her creatures.

BIRDS OF THE GARDEN AND ORCHARD.

III.

THE ROBIN.

OUR American birds have not been celebrated in classic song. They are hardly well known even to our own people, and have not in general been exalted by praise above their real merits. We read, both in prose and verse, of the European Lark, the Linnet, and the Nightingale, and the English Robin Redbreast has been immortalized in song. But the American Robin is a bird of very different habits.. Not much has been written about him as a songster, and he enjoys but little celebrity. He has never been puffed and overpraised, and though universally admired, the many who admire him are fearful all the while lest they are mistaken in their judgment and waste their admiration upon an object that is unworthy of it, one whose true merits fall short of their own estimate. want of self-reliance affecting the generality of minds which often causes every man publicly to praise what each one privately condemns, thus creating a spurious public opinion.

It is the same

I shall not ask pardon of those critics who are always canting about musical "power," and who would probably deny this gift to the Robin, because he cannot gobble like a turkey or squall like a cat, and because with his charming strains he does not mingle all sorts of discords and incongruous sounds, for assigning the Robin a very high rank as a singing-bird. Let them say, in the cant of modern criticism, that his performances cannot be