. 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 unwont
to sing 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 notebook. 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 also the month