April brings the orioles to play their not insignificant part in the great color scheme of Nature at this resurrection season. I always associate the coming of the orchard oriole with the opening of the Chickasaw roses, and the arrival of the Baltimore with the blooming of the yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera). For several seasons I caught my first glimpse of the Baltimore’s flame and black in the top of a tall poplar, and heard his cheery whistle as he dodged in and out among the great cups, making a breakfast on the insects whose hum made the whole woods drowsy. A few brief days of rest and pleasure in this land of flowers and the orioles are gone, except a few pairs that stay to rear their families in these solitudes. A long, slim, brown body, a stealthy way of sliding in and out among the vines and limbs, and a shy, suspicious air mark the black billed cuckoo or raincrow. He, too, stays but a few days. When you see the raincrow it is time to look for the Wilson’s thrush; but it was never my privilege to hear him sing in these forests. Perhaps he is tired out with the long journey from the land of eternal summer and wishes to be seen, not heard. Writers tell us that this thrush is very plentiful in certain localities, but in this section of the South I saw only two specimens in four years. The musician of the thrush family, of the whole woods for that matter, in some points a successful rival of the mocking bird, is the wood thrush. Dark cinnamon brown, of quite a uniform tint above and white breast spotted with round, black, or dark brown enable one to pick him out easily from the rest of the thrush family. I remember hearing one sing at a negro “baptizing” just at sunset of an April day. After the immersion had taken place, as the officiating “elder” led the candidate to the bank of the pond, clear negro voices raised one of the good old hymns. As the words of the last verse died away on the evening air and the elder raised his hand to pronounce the benediction, a wood thrush in the nearby forest began his vespers. Sweet, clear as a silver bell, the notes arose, tinkling, reverberating, tender but dignified, voicing in a half-unconscious way the solemn emotions of the hour. What is there in the singing of even the best of trained choirs to compare with this simple voice of Nature, without affectation or conceit, arousing the feelings and appealing to the noblest instincts of our common nature. Birds crowd in upon us, bull bat, chuck-wills-widow, turtle dove, gray-cheeked thrush and titlark come to see us, some to stop and add their own individual element to the local coloring, others after a few hours of rest to continue their way northward. Multitudes of sparrows, jays, thrashers, nuthatches, titmice, woodpeckers, etc., that have enjoyed our hospitality during the winter and part of the spring pack up their effects and leave, for summer is almost here.