The winter is characteristically a season of silence. The sounds heard at a distance from human habitations are mainly those produced by inanimate nature. The wind causes varied discords amid the bare branches of the deciduous trees or sings weird melodies in the pines. Strange muffled roars come from the frozen lakes, as the ice contracts and breaks during periods of excessive cold. The frost in tree trunks causes sharp explosions. The ice-covered streams are still except where cataracts interrupt their even flow. In the profound silence of a calm winter night the distant dismal howl of a wolf, the cry of an owl, or the bark of a fox alone reminds one that life still continues, but these animate sounds are far more frequently absent than present. With the coming of the spring there is a marvellous awakening and unfolding. The brooks, swollen to overflowing by the melting of the snow, make music as they run. The northward flight of the birds brings to every grove a chorus of song. A host of batrachians and reptiles bestir themselves after a long winter sleep and vociferously proclaim their presence. The insect world, with its unnumbered legions, takes wing. The air vibrates with millions of voices. The trees put forth their leaves, each a harp-string which responds to the touch of the fingers of the wind. The organ-notes of the thunder again startle the hibernating echoes. As the winter is the silent season, so the spring is the time of music. One of the most charming of the many phases of nature's concert season is the matin songs of the birds. Ere the eastern sky along the New England coast becomes roseate with the first blush of morn, the twitter of birds may be heard amid the shadowy branches of the trees. Soon a thrush or a warbler awakens in full song, and is followed by a host of other voices, until the air pulsates with music. As the sun rises and his first level rays reveal the varied tints of the tree tops, the many-voiced chorus passes the height of its ecstasy and the music gradually subsides. But the glad tidings of the coming of the day are passed westward from grove to grove and from meadow to meadow, and a wave of song sweeps on ahead of the wave of light, induced by its coming. The song-wave spreads to the north and south and flows steadily westward over the forest-covered mountains, across the great central basin of the continent, breaking on the treeless plateaus into many streams which follow the grove-fringed rivers, passes through the depressions in the Rocky Mountains, and although weakened in the arid valleys beyond, is not checked. The larks there listen for its coming and pass the joyful message westward. The timid dwellers in the great forests of Oregon awaken at the magic sound and the lofty tree tops are made to thrill with the voices of unseen choirs while it is yet night in the silent aisles below. The onward rush of sound is not reflected or turned back by the lofty Cascades, but flows through their passes and