An ancient writer beautifully describes one of those bright, transient showers which prevail at this season. Away to that sunny nook, for the thick shower Rushes on strikingly: ay, now it comes, Glancing about the leaves with its first dips, Like snatches of faint music. Joyous bird, It mingles with thy song, and beats soft time To thy warbling notes. Now it louder falls, Pattering, like the far voice of leaping rills; And now it breaks upon the shrinking clumps With a crash of many sounds; the thrush is still, There are sweet scents around us; the flow’ret hides, On that green bank, beneath the leaves; The earth is grateful to the teeming clouds, And yields a sudden freshness to their kisses. And now the shower slopes to the warm west, Leaving a dewy track; and see, the big drops, Like falling pearls, glisten in the sunny mist. The air is clear again, and the far woods Shine out in their early green. Let’s onward, then, For the first blossoms peep about the path; The lambs are nibbling the short, dripping grass, And the birds are on the bushes. The month of April not unfrequently introduces us to the chimney or house-swallow, known by its long, forked tail and red breast. At first, here and there only one appears glancing quickly by us, as if scarcely able to endure the cold, which Warton beautifully describes— The swallow for a moment seen, Skims in haste the village green. But in a few days their number is much increased, and they sport with seeming pleasure in the warm sunshine. Along the surface of the winding stream, Pursuing every turn, gay swallows skim, Or round the borders of the spacious lawn, Fly in repeated circles, rising o’er Hillock and fence with motion serpentine, Easy and light. One snatches from the ground A downy feather, and then upward springs, Followed by others, but oft drops it soon, In playful mood, or from too slight a hold, When all at once dart at the falling prize. As these birds live on insects, their appearance is a certain proof that some of this minute tribe of animals have ventured from their winter abodes. Thomson thus describes this busy month among the feathered tribes—