ly lakes to men unknown."

Dwelling upon these sights, I am reminded that the seeing of spring
come, not only upon the great wings of the geese and the lesser wings
of the pigeons and birds, but in the many more subtle and indirect
signs and mediums, is also a part of the compensation of living in
the country. I enjoy not less what may be called the negative side of
spring,--those dark, dank, dissolving days,
yellow sposh and mud and water everywhere,--yet who can stay long
indoors? The humidity is soft and satisfying to the smell, and to the
face and hands, and, for the first time for months, there is the fresh
odor of the earth. The air is full of the notes and calls of the first
birds. The domestic fowls refuse their accustomed food and wander far
from the barn. Is it something winter has left, or spring has dropped,
that they pick up? And what is it that holds me so long standing in the
yard or in the fields? Something besides the ice and snow melts and runs
away with the spring floods.

The little sparrows and purple finches are so punctual in announcing
spring, that some seasons one wonders how they know without looking in
the almanac, for surely there are no signs of spring out of doors. Yet
they will strike up as cheerily amid the driving snow as if they had
just been told that to-morrow is the first day of March. About the same
time I notice the potatoes in the cellar show signs of sprouting.
They, too, find out so quickly when spring is near. Spring comes by two
routes,--in the air and underground, and often gets here by the latter
course first. She undermines Winter when outwardly his front is nearly
as bold as ever. I have known the trees to bud long before, by outward
appearances, one would expect them to. The frost was gone from the
ground before the snow was gone from the surface.

But Winter hath his birds also; some of them such tiny bodies that one
wonders how they withstand the giant cold,--but they do. Birds live on
highly concentrated food,--the fine seeds of weeds and grasses, and
the eggs and larvae of insects. Such food must be very stimulating and
heating. A gizzard full of ants, for instance, what spiced and seasoned
extract is equal to that? Think what virtue there must be in an ounce
of gnats or mosquitoes, or in the fine mysterious food the chickadee and
the brown creeper gather in the winter woods! It is doubtful if these
birds ever freeze when fuel enough can be had to keep their little