ist we have. The females are greatly in excess of the males, and
the latter are usually attended by three or four of the former. As soon
as the other birds begin to build, they are on the _qui vive,_ prowling
about like gypsies, not to steal the young of others, but to steal their
eggs into other birds' nests, and so shirk the labor and responsibility
of hatching and rearing their own young. As these birds do not mate, and
as therefore there can be little or no rivalry or competition between
the males, one wonders--in view of Darwin's teaching--why one sex should
have brighter and richer plumage than the other, which is the fact. The
males are easily distinguished from the dull and faded females by their
deep glossy-black coats.

The April of English literature corresponds nearly to our May. In Great
Britain, the swallow and the cuckoo usually arrive by the middle of
April; with us, their appearance is a week or two later. Our April,
at its best, is a bright, laughing face under a hood of snow, like the
English March, but presenting sharper contrasts, a greater mixture of
smiles and tears and icy looks than are known to our ancestral climate.
Indeed, Winter sometimes retraces his steps in this month, and unburdens
himself of the snows that the previous cold has kept back; but we are
always sure of a number of radiant, equable days,--days that go before
the bud, when the sun embraces the earth with fervor and determination.
How his beams pour into the woods till the mould under the leaves is
warm and emits an odor! The waters glint and sparkle, the birds gather
in groups, and even those unused to singing find a voice. On the streets
of the cities, what a flutter, what bright looks and gay colors! I
recall one preeminent day of this kind last April. I made a note of it
in my note-book. The earth seemed suddenly to emerge from a wilderness
of clouds and chilliness into one of these blue sunlit spaces. How
the voyagers rejoiced! Invalids came forth, old men sauntered down the
street, stocks went up, and the political outlook brightened.

Such days bring out the last of the hibernating animals. The woodchuck
unrolls and creeps out of his den to see if his clover has started yet.
The torpidity leaves the snakes and the turtles, and they come forth and
bask in the sun. There is nothing so small, nothing so great, that it
does not respond to these celestial spring days, and give the pendulum
of life a fresh start.

April is a