This happened on the 10th. Now it is the 13th. I have seen no more bluebirds, and song sparrows are still missing; but this morning an ecstatic purple finch warbled, and better still (for somehow, I do not know how or why, it gave me more pleasure), a flicker called again and again in his loud, peremptory, long-winded manner. He, or another like him, has been in the neighborhood all winter, but this was his first spring utterance. It was no uncertain sound. The bluebird peeps in upon us, as it were. His air is timid. “Is winter really gone?” he seems to say; but the flicker is a breezier customer. His mood is positive. He pushes the door wide open, and slams it back against the wall. “Spring, spring!” he shouts, and all the world may hear him. Soon he and the downy will begin their amorous drumming on dry stubs and flakes of resonant bark. This was early in the morning. Since then I have been over to the cattle pasture, and in it found a flock of ten or twelve robins. They were feeding in the grass, but at my approach flew into some savin trees and fell to eating berries. As seems to be always true at this time of the year, they were in splendid color, and apparently in the very pink of physical condition; their bills were never so golden, it seemed to me, nor their heads so velvety black, nor their eyelids so white. They would not sing, but it was like the best of music to hear them cackle softly as they flew from the grass into the cedars. Say what you will, the robin is a pretty fine bird, especially in March. MARCH SWALLOWS The birds are having their innings. They have been away and have come back, and even the most stolid citizen is for the moment aware of their presence. I rejoice to see them so popular. Two or three mornings ago I met a friend in the road, a farmer, one of the happy men, good to talk with, who glory in their work. A phœbe was calling from the top of an elm, and as we were near the farmer’s house I asked, “How long has the phœbe been here?” He looked up, saw the bird, and answered with a smile, “He must have just come. I haven’t heard him before.” I made some remark about its being pleasant to have such creatures with us again, and he responded, as I knew he would, in the heartiest manner. “Oh, I do love to see them!” he said. I was reminded of a lady of whom I had been told the day before. She had felt obliged, as I heard the story, to attend a meeting of the woman’s club, but remarked to one of her assembled sisters that she had had half a mind to stay at home. The truth was, she explained, that two or three meadow larks were singing gloriously in the rear of her house, and she could hardly bear to come away and leave them. I hope her self-denial was rewarded.