THE SPIRIT OF SPRING.
It came to me this morning, in my room, and filled my whole being with a subtle feeling of delight and mysterious glad expectancy. When I went downstairs they told me that it was colder than yesterday; that the thermometer registered 14 degrees above zero. But what care I for the thermometer? What does it know about spring?
Spring is a spirit which takes possession of the air, be it hot or cold, and makes one’s heart sing for joy.
The crows kept telling me the glad news, “Spring has come!” all the time I was dressing, and it was echoed in the tufted tit’s questioning note when he flew round the house to his breakfast on the window sill. When I started out for my morning walk the very air seemed filled with tiny voices proclaiming the good tidings.
I had not gone far before I heard a cardinal singing gloriously, his song answering the one in my own heart; and the theme was ever, “Spring has come!”
But the crowning surprise and joy of all came when I had reached the brook pasture. I stopped, listened and caught my breath; could it be on the 27th of February? Yes, a song sparrow! No one who is unacquainted with the purity and simple charm of this bird’s song, which breathes of all that is fair and good, can understand or appreciate the rapture I felt upon hearing it again this morning. Going on a little farther I heard another song sparrow; the two were singing by turns, answering each other in sweetest melody. One could scarcely wait until the other had finished his strain, so eager were they to pour out the good news.
Oh, if you who are tired or dull indoors will only go out these mornings and fill your lungs with the pure air of heaven and your hearts with the rapture of spring, how many of your cares will drop away! Nature’s myriad voices will talk to you if you will listen; the birds will sing to you the sweetest music in the world—God’s love in melody.
This joy in the beauties of Nature may be yours if you will; do not allow such a precious gift to escape you. It is beyond price, yet free to all. Each year adds to the wonder and value of Nature’s treasures; they are ever new, ever more and more welcome with each returning season. Happy are they who know and love them well.
Anne Wakely Jackson.
FROM AN ORNITHOLOGIST’S YEAR BOOK.
FLUTE OF ARCADY.
In Ohio are many wide, grassy fields, covering the rounded hillslopes or filling open valleys. One day in March the world was white with snow, and I heard, as if in a dream, the soft cooing of the doves. Never before had I heard it except on sunny afternoons in pine woods, rich with warm, resinous odors. It is hardly a sound—rather silence perceptible, blending so perfectly with the sunshine, the hushed and brooding stillness of the air, the half-conscious sense of life, that I would often hear it a long while without knowing that I listened—the soft, tremulous cooing of the wood-doves, yet here the earth was white with snow and the air chill.
But the doves were right. Spring was near, and in a little while the feathery grass was nodding in the warm wind, gray and hazy, as the great white clouds swept overhead with wing-like shadows, or shining, each tiny blade like burnished steel, in the sunlight. The cooing of the doves had been only a low prelude; now the air was ringing with melody.
“N’er a leaf was dumb;
Around us all the thickets rung
To many a flute of Arcady.”
The fresh, glad songs of the western meadow larks! Everywhere, everywhere, the air was vibrant with the poignant sweetness of their silvery voices; everywhere you might see the shining yellow of their breasts as they rose with strong wing; everywhere you might perhaps chance to stumble upon some nest of woven grasses. Often with arched covering, on the very ground, with the dear little brownish mother bending over four or six white eggs, freckled with cinnamon spots. It is the season of the larks, and earth and sky are more lovely for the magic of their singing. One hardly knows how to describe it in words. Spring o’ the year! Spring o’ the year! it seems to say to the listener, both in the east and west, but the song of the western meadow lark has a richer melody, a more piercing delight. It seems to talk of forgotten things; of youth and first hopes; first love; it has all the glamour of the far-away, and yet a sweetness of the near. It rises from the thick grass at your feet, yet it mounts towards the blue sky! It is a veritable Flute of Arcady blown with a breath of joy.
Ella F. Mosby.
The dogwood blossoms white as snow
Their favors now to rambler show,
And where the Winter’s latest drift
Through the dark moss did silent sift,
All blossomed-starred, above the ground
The shy arbutus now is found.
The cloud-capped mountains all appear
With verdant slopes and summits clear;
The sun has lost its soulless glare—
Earth, sea and sky are wondrous fair.
—George Bancroft Griffith.
RED-BACKED SANDPIPER.
(Tringa alpina pacifica.)
¾ Life-size.
FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.
THE RED-BACKED SANDPIPER.
(Tringa alpina pacifica.)
The sandpipers trip on the glassy beach,
Ready to mount and fly;
Whenever a ripple reaches their feet
They rise with a timorous cry.
—Duncan Campbell Scott, “Sandpipers.”
Very early in the spring the Red-backed Sandpiper leaves its winter home in the States and countries bordering the Gulf of Mexico and starts on its long journey to the cooler region of the far north. It arrives in Alaska early in May, in full breeding plumage, and the males are soon engaged in prettily wooing the coy females. Mr. Nelson, who had unexcelled opportunities for studying the habits of these interesting sandpipers, well describes their courting habits. He says: “The males may be seen upon quivering wings flying after the female and uttering a musical, trilling note, which falls upon the ear like the mellow tinkle of large water-drops falling rapidly into a partly filled vessel. Imagine the sounds thus produced by the water run together into a steady and rapid trill some five or ten seconds in length, and the note of this Sandpiper is represented. It is not loud, but has a rich, full tone, difficult to describe, but pleasant to hear. As the lover’s suit approaches its end the handsome suitor becomes exalted, and in his moments of excitement he rises fifteen or twenty yards, and hovering on tremulous wings over the object of his passion, pours forth a perfect gush of music, until he glides back to earth exhausted, but ready to repeat the effort a few minutes later. The female coyly retreats before the advance of the male, but after various mishaps each bird finds its partner for the summer and they start off house-hunting in all the ardor of a rising honeymoon.”
The Red-backed Sandpiper is not a bird architect and it does not build even a simple home. A slight hollow on a dry knoll, which commands a clear view of some body of water, is the site usually selected. Here the eggs are laid, either upon the dry grass already in the hollow or upon a few bits of leaves, twigs and grass hastily gathered and placed without order. After the appearance of the eggs the male seems to realize the responsibility of family cares, for his merry song ceases and he devotes his share of time to sitting on the nest, protecting the eggs with his warm body. That this is the case is shown by the bare patches that appear on his breast at this season.
With such a home as is prepared for their reception, it is not surprising that the little red-backs leave the nest as soon as they are hatched and freely run about. When frightened they readily conceal themselves by sitting on the ground and remaining quiet.
This species exhibits considerable variation in the color of its plumage. In the spring and summer it may be known by the black patch on the belly and reddish color of its back, which is mottled with white and black. At this season it is often called Blackbreast. In the fall and winter the upper parts are brownish-gray in color and the under parts are whitish. It is then frequently called the Leadback. The Red-back is not as active as the other sandpipers and its unsuspicious nature makes it seem quite stupid. Though a beach bird, it is not infrequently met in grassy marshes, and by some it is called the Grass-bird.