April brings the twittering of tree-swallows, and spreads a tinge of color like a faint red mist over the swamps. This flower of the maple is one whose virtues are seldom sung, as though the blossoms of trees counted for little. Surely the bursting of silver-gray rods into this vivid bloom is an event worthy the muse. It is not only in autumn the red maple graces the swamp. These modest blossoms of the early year--willow, alder, poplar, elm, maple--must have their place in the flower calendar, are worthy a Festival of Trees, to be associated with the song of the hyla. Anything like an exact flower calendar is out of the question, for much depends on the locality and the season. We look for bloodroot and hepatica to follow arbutus, and yet I have on occasion found bluets several weeks in advance of these. The saxifrage is perhaps quite as early as any, though I have seen the buds of the marsh-marigold about to open on the 25th of March. Much depends on which has the more favorable spot in any locality. In a warm nook, on the 13th of April, bloodroot, hepatica, spring-beauty, early saxifrage, dicentra, wood-and rue-anemones and adder's-tongue, as well as common blue and long-spurred violets, were blooming together in profusion. The saxifrage and bloodroot might, of course, have been seen a week earlier. In the same spot several days later, columbines, miterwort and groundnut, and also sweet white violets, downy yellow and lance-leaved violets, were added to the list and were followed by bellworts and wood-betony. This was in northern New Jersey. Meanwhile I had seen only the common blue violets in the Connecticut Valley, while in eastern Massachusetts the wood-anemones were not in bloom, and the leaf of the columbine had just appeared above the soil. This particular spot was evidently a sort of natural forcing ground where the columbine was made to bloom with the bloodroot. What becomes of your flower calendar here? Looking still for signs of spring, I came full upon the fickle goddess herself. Before we know it, the migration of warblers has begun and the keen ear detects their thin wiry notes. But this is not so much a sign as it is the fulfilling of prophecies. BIRD LIFE