there is not breeze enough, even up there, to stir it.

Gnats and moths flit in the soft sunlight and spiders run over tree
trunks while their single shining lines of silk are stretched among
the hazel.

Anon the bird chorus breaks out, full and strong. The winter birds
report all present but there are a number of new voices, especially
the warble of the robin, the tremulous, confiding "sol-si, sol-si" of
the bluebird and the clear call of the phoebe. The robins are thick
down in the birch swamps, on the islands among the last year's
knot-weed. You may tell them at a distance by their trim, military
manner of walking, and if you wish you may get close enough to them to
take their complete description. And, by the way, how many can
describe this common bird, the color of his head and bill, his back
and tail, and the exact shade of his breast. Is there any white on
him, and if so, where?

After the ice is out of the rivers the bird-lover is kept busy. In the
early sunny morning the duet of the robins and the meadow larks is
better than breakfast. March usually gives us the hermit thrush and
the ruby-and golden-crowned kinglets; the song, field, fox, white
throated, Savannah and Lincoln sparrows; the meadow lark, the bronzed
grackle and the cowbird; the red-winged, the yellow-head and the rusty
blackbirds; the wood pewee and the olive-sided flycatcher; the flicker
and the sap-sucker, the mourning dove and several of the water fowl.
Last week--the first week in March--a golden eagle paused in his
migration to sit awhile on a fence post at the side of a timber road.
Two men got near enough to see the color of his feathers and then one
of them, with a John Burroughs instinct, took a shot at him. He
missed; there was a spread of the great wings and the big bird
resumed his journey northward.

* * * * *

By the shallow creek which ripples over the many-hued gravel there is
much of interest. The frog sits on the bank as we approach and goes
into the water with a splash. In the quiet little bayous the minnows
are lively, and tracks upon the soft mud show that the mink has been
watching them. A pile of neatly cleaned clam shells is evidence that
the muskrat has had a feast. There is a huge clam, partly opened, at
arm's length from the shore. We fish it out and pry it open farther;
out comes the remains of the esculent clam, and we almost jump when it
is followed by a live and healthy crawfish.