And yet, when these fish swing away from me, as my shadow comes over them, when they try time after time, sometimes frantically, to climb a mound of rocks or a head of water, I wonder about being “frightened,” or the noun “fear.” Is this spring stream of life without it? A bird trips off a branch in sudden alarm, cries out, and then forgets, to start in on a singing joy all over again. Birds are more emotional than cold-blooded fish, but if fear is a protective, lifesaving reaction inherent in a great many animals, then the fish may not be devoid of it. They are one of the foods of the universe, and in balance with that function, it is not just that their glands stimulate them to momentary activity, or that they flinch before disaster, but that they express in their bodies the wild need for freedom to act, to find, to run, to be, that manifests itself in highly developed animals, and to some degree in the lesser ones. They are in a sense compensating for the uses to which they are put as a prey, or element, of universal appetite. The alewives will not be frightened away, but they will come back with fear. It is not wise to be too impatient with a child. _May_ _Declarations_ The colder, and still relatively silent world of April is past. Warm sunlight runs across trees, sharp shadows, water and sand, with a penetrating radiance. The alewives now come up the inland stream day after day. Pale, sun laden, they move against the fast-rushing current, arousing great excitement in the gulls. The big white and gray birds hover over, then dive down in a flock where the fish crowd in shallow water on their way up. The valley is full of marauding and assemblies and crying out as the fish keep on, rushing and weaving with the stream flowing over their backs. And now the shad blow blooms. Thousands and thousands of these little trees are laden, but lightly, with lacy white flowers, looking like standing clouds in open woods and valleys throughout the Cape. Pink and yellow and silvery-green colors begin to appear on the oaks. Anthers are hanging conspicuously from the pitch pines. Fish, insects, plants, birds are all, if I can personify them so, in close and obedient relationship to nature. They count on strength and protection when they sing or flower out above the ground. They are in confident relationship to the general being. And so they act with confidence. They have come. They will be. They declare themselves. The birds make the dawns sound with a silvery rain of music. On the morning when a thrush wakes me up, its rippling and melodious peals lifting and diving through the air, I have an incalculable urge to migrate outward and claim new territory. Spring tells me I have not had enough.