Here and there along this waterway the branches clasp hands above the creek, forming an arch of green within which vines sufficiently elegant to warrant exclusiveness cling in unaffected grace to the alders, without inquiring or caring as to the pedigree of their support. It is sufficient for them that the support is there. A whole half mile along the stream and trees and bushes disappear, leaving a dense mass of reeds, the marsh wren’s “ain countrie,” out of which he is never at his best and to which he gives you no welcome. Birds, like persons, have wonderful powers of concentration upon one topic, woe be to you if that topic happens to be yourself! Every denizen of the swamp regards you with suspicion, watching each movement as closely as if you were a dangerous character traveling under an alias, and could not be trusted to sail upon this ruddy ocean in which their lordships have anchored their private yachts. Push your boat far in among the reeds and cat-tails, into the sea of shadows over which no sluggish current sends a ripple, and certain globular nests in the tangled reeds reward your search. Push your fingers within these nests and in one only, here and there, will you find from five to ten dark eggs, a rich reward for all your trouble. Meanwhile the “neighbors,” and the marsh wren generally has numbers of them, have doubtless been charming you with their bubbling, gurgling song, always half the colony singing at once, or, one bird rising above the reeds gives the order, as it were, and the whole colony joins in the chorus. The song is quite beyond their control; they seem filled to overflowing with an inexhaustible supply of music, which trickles down the reeds, like gathered-up drops of water charged with music. “Sometimes, like a mine of melody, it explodes within them and lifts them from the dark recesses of the flags into the air above.” Nelly Hart Woodworth. WHEN SPRING COMES. Again the birds will weave their nests, And come and go on airy wing; And one will nurse her little guests And one will watch and sweetly sing. The bushes small and towering trees Their leaves of living green will don, And, swaying in the restless breeze, Will laugh because old Winter’s gone. —George Gee. [Illustration: ] Description of Plate—A, twig with staminate flowers; B, fruit-bearing twig; 1, upper portion of staminate inflorescence; 2, staminate flower; 3, fruit; 4, 5, 6, 7, ovary; 8, 9, seed. CUBEBS. (_Piper cubeba_ L.) Aromatics, as cubebs, cinnamons and nutmegs, are usually put into crude poor wines to give them more oily spirits.—Floyer, “The Humors.”