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of a tall Birch, the better to proclaim my perfidy to the whole world, would have excited the interest and applause of the coolest observer. So much in a general sense; but let me discriminate; "for my purpose holds" to call my favorites by name, and point them out to you, as the tuneful procession passes. Every stage of the advancing season gives prominence to certain birds as to certain flowers. The Dandelion tells me when to look for the Swallow, and I know the Thrushes will not linger when the Orchis is in bloom. In my latitude, April is emphatically the month of the Robin. In large numbers they scour the fields and groves. You hear their piping in the meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry leaves rustle with the whir of their wings, the air is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among the trees with perilous rapidity. In that free, fascinating, half-work and half-play pursuit,--sugar-making,--a pursuit which still lingers in many parts of New York, as in New England, the Robin is one's boon companion. When the day is sunny and the ground bare, you meet him at all points and hear him at all hours. At sunset, on the tops of the tall Maples, with look heavenward, and in a spirit of utter abandonment, he carols his simple strain. And sitting thus amid the stark, silent trees, above the wet, cold earth, with the chill of winter still in the air, there is no fitter or sweeter songster in the whole round year. It is in keeping with the scene and the occasion. How round and genuine the notes are, and how eagerly our ears drink them in! The first utterance, and the spell of winter is thoroughly broken and the remembrance of it afar off. Robin is one of the most native and democratic of our birds; he is one of the family, and seems much nearer to us than those rare, exotic visitants, as the Orchard-Starling or Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, with their distant, high-bred ways. Hardy, noisy, frolicsome, neighborly and domestic in his ways, strong of wing and bold in spirit, he is the pioneer of the Thrush family, and well worthy of the finer artists whose coming he heralds and in a measure prepares us for. I could wish Robin less native and plebeian in one respect,--the building of his nest. Its coarse material and rough masonry are creditable neither to his skill as a workman nor to his ta
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