It changes the whole aspect of things, when on some raw day the first redwing of the season appears--a vivid bit of color in the bleak swamp, a hopeful and melodious voice breaking the silence of the year. The birds are shy and elusive on their arrival and we have every year to become acquainted again. Even the robins are furtive and silent, flitting in the sheltered swamps; but the middle of March finds them calling to each other in their old jocular way. Drawn by the same subtle influence, the angleworm seems to work toward the surface about the time the robin is thinking of the lawn, till one day they meet as by appointment. If the season is late, the worm retires below where it is less frosty, and the robin takes to the sumac berries, or whatever else he can find, and defers his spring relish a little longer. Round about there is an awakening as from an enchanted sleep; the drowsy world yawns and stretches. The highhole is in evidence, and his rattling call is calculated to awake the sleepers in that pasture at least. Soon the chipmunk is on the wall, and the woodchuck warily pokes his head from his burrow. This note of the highhole is irrepressibly exuberant and ringing with energy. If it does not prove a tonic to you, nothing else will. He is even more emphatic in his drumming. His lively tattoo goes well with his vigorous call. Time to be up and doing! _Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!_ Presently the first flock of fox-sparrows drop down from somewhere and go to scratching among the leaves, like so many chickens. The present season a flock of perhaps fifty settled in and around a thicket on March 24th. Their bold clear notes could be heard some distance away, and drew one in that direction. Numbers of them were hopping about, and occasionally a bird would rise to a branch overhead and sing, looking like a hermit-thrush as his back was turned. The place was given over to the sparrows, and never was thicket more tuneful. There was the sound of unceasing revelry--a sylvan and melodious revelry. At this season the impulse to expression is natural and daily becomes more evident. Even the crow begins to affect music and to show off his accomplishments. But it is Mlle. Corbeau, and not M. Reynard, that incites him to this exhibition of vanity. You may hear him in the pine grove, apparently gargling his throat, which is meant for a gay roulade to please the ear of some dusky beauty lingering near and perhaps affecting indifference. This is only a prelude to the astonishing falsetto that sometimes follows, and which, be it hoped, may prove more acceptable to Mlle. Corbeau than to our more critical ears. It is very evident something is going on. The large flocks of winter have given away to small and excited bands which keep up a perpetual clamor. It is no surprise, then, some day in March to detect a crow carrying twigs.