Wake-Robin

, with the exception of a month each summer spent in

early as wild and as fleet of wing as a bird. I thought I had reached the capital of grasshopperdom, and that this was perhaps one of the chiefs or leaders, or perhaps the great High Cock O'lorum himself, taking an airing in the fields.

re every month of the year; violets in December, a single houstonia in January (the little lump of earth upon which it stood was frozen hard), and a tiny weed-like plant, with a flower almost microscopic in its smallness, growing along graveled walks and in old plowed fields in February. The liverwort sometimes comes out as early as the first week in March, and the little frogs begin to pipe doubtfully about the same time. Apricot-trees are u

arose, tender, musical, half suppressed, but full of genuine hilarity and joy. The bluebird warbled, the robin called, the snowbird chattered, the meadowlark uttered her strong but tender note. Over a deserted field a turkey buzzard hovered low, and alighted on a stake in the fence, standing a moment with outstretched, vibrating wings till he was sure of his hold. A soft, warm, brooding day. Roads becoming dry in many pla

him in the North. After a pause he repeats his summons. What can be more welcom

try brings one to real primitive woods. The town has not yet overflowed its limits like the great Northern comme

away the dry leaves and débris on a sunny slope, I discover the liverwort just pushing up a fuzzy, tender sprout. But the waters have brought forth. The little frogs are musical. From every marsh and pool goes up their shrill but pleasing chorus. Peering into one of their haunts, a little body of semi-stagnant water, I discover masses of frogs' spawn covering the bottom. I take up great chunks of the cold, quivering jelly in my hands. In s

, you suddenly perceive a change has come over the trees. Their tops have a less naked look. If the weather continues warm, a single day will work wonders. Presently each tree will be one v

in loose, scattered flocks, now in thick dense masses, then singly and in pairs or triplets, but all setting in one direction, probably to the waters of eastern Maryland. Toward night they begin to return, flying in the same manner, and directing their course to the wooded heights on the Potomac, west of the city. In spring these diurnal mass movements cease; the clan breaks up, the rookery is abandoned, and the birds scatter broa

o close during a strong wind as to expose themselves to the clubs and stones of schoolboys ambushed behind trees and fences. The belated ones, that come laboring along just at dusk, are o

ll extent, threaten and chase each other, while perhaps one or two are feeding. Their wings are very large and flexible, and the slightest motion of them, while the bird stands upon the ground, suffices to lift its feet clear. Their movements when in the air are very majestic and beautiful to the eye, being in every respect identical with those of our common hen or red-tailed hawk. The

fights the hawk, and the kingbird and the crow blackbird fight the crow; but neither takes any notice of the buzzard. He excites the enmity of none, for the reason that he molests none. The crow has an old grudge against

twos and alight in the trees near me. Presently they came in greater numbers, but from the same direction, flapping low over the woods, and taking up their position in the middle branches. On alighting, each one would blow very audibly through his nose, just as a cow does when she lies down; this is the only sound I have ever heard the buzzard make. They would then stretch themselves, after the manner of turkeys, and walk along the limbs. Sometimes a decayed branch would break under the weight of two or three, when, with a great flapping, the would take up new

rs of buzzards sailing around ove

r part of winter may be had in the following extract,

and showing nearly as much white." (I have since discovered that the shore lark is a regular visitant here in February and March, when large quantities of them are shot or trapped, and exposed for sale in the market. During a heavy snow I have seen numbers of them feeding upon the seeds of various weedy growths in a large market-garden well into town.) "Pressing on, the walk became exhilarating. Followed a little brook, the eastern branch of the Tiber, lined with bushes and a rank growth of green-brier. Sparrows started out here and there, and flew across the little bends and points. Among some pines just beyond the boundary, saw a number of American goldfinches, in their gray winter dress, pecking the pinecones. A golden-crowned kinglet was there also, a little tuft of gray feathers, hopping about as restl

, March 4th,

being inaugurated! Some puppies, snugly nestled in the cavity of an old hollow tree, he said, belonged to a wild dog. I imagine I saw the 'wild dog,' on the other side of Rock Creek, in a great state of grief and trepidation, running up and down, crying and yelping, and looking wistfully over the swollen flood, which the poor thing ha

alighting on the ground in quest of food, their polished coats glistening in the sun from very blackness as they walk about. There is evidently some music in the soul of this bird at this season, though he makes a sad failure in getting it out. His voice always sounds as if he were l

nst one of the window-panes. Looking up, they beheld a crow blackbird pausing in midair, a few feet from the window. On the broad stone window-sill lay the quivering form of a purple finch. The little tragedy was easily read. The blackbird had pursued the finch with such murderous violence that the latter, in its desperate effo

resence of man. I was once startled, while living in a country village, to behold, on entering my room at noon, one October day, a quail sitt

rowing near. By midsummer the blackbirds became so bold as to venture within this court. Various fragments of food, tossed from the surrounding windows, reward their t

cting their course about half a mile distant, and disappearing, on their return, among the trees about the Capitol. Returning, the female always had her beak loaded with building material, while the male, carrying nothing, seemed to act as her escort, flying a little

proach nearer and nearer, reconnoitring the premises, and watching the growing fruit. Hardly have the green lobes turned a red cheek to the sun, before their beaks have scarred it. At first they approach the tree stealthily, on the side turned from the house, diving quickly into the branches in ones and twos, while the main flock is ambushed in some shade tree not far off.

rd is conspicuous. He comes about the middle of April, and seems particularly attached to the silver poplars. In every street, and all day long, one may hea

low is heard first, followed in a day or two by the squeaking of the cliff swallow. The chimney swallows, or swifts, are not far behind, and remain here in la

parks and large government reservations, that an unusual number of birds find their way into it in the course of the season. Rare warblers, as the

time the song of the ruby-crowned wren, or kinglet,-the same liquid bubble and cadence which characterize the wren-songs generally, but much finer and more delicate than the song of any other variety known to me; beginning in a fine, round, needle-like note, and rising into a full, sustained warble, [SYMBOL DELETED] a strain, on whole, remarkably

d quite thickly wooded. Here in early spring I go to hear the robins, catbirds, blackbirds, wrens, etc. In March the white-throated and white-crowned sparrows may be seen, hopping about on the flower-beds or peering

l the forenoon. The song of some birds is like scarlet,-strong, intense, emphatic. This is the character of the orchard starlings, also the tanage

he song of the fox sparrow. It is a strong, richly modu

e. A score of throats pour out one brief, hilarious, tuneful jubilee and are suddenly silent. There is a strange remoteness and fascination about it. Presently you will discover its

ason is backward, they tarry a week or ten days, singing freely and appearing quite at home. In large flocks they search over every inch of ground, and a

hearing their calls at night as they fly over the city. On certain nights the sound becomes quite noticeable. I have awakened in the middle of the night, and, through the open window, as I lay in bed, heard their faint

e identified. I make out the snowbird, the bobolink, the warblers, and on two ni

f not a very musical songster. He perches upon the fences and upon the trees by the roadside, and, spreading his tail, gives forth his harsh strain, which may be

for the most part wooded; here reposing in long, dark reaches, there sweeping and hurrying around a sudden bend or over a rocky bed; receiving at short intervals small runs and spring rivulets, which open up vistas and outlooks to the right and left, of the most charming description,-Rock Creek has an abundance of all the elements that make up not only pleasing but wild and rugged scenery. There is perhaps, not another city in the Union that has on its very threshold so much natural

y brook, flowing through a valley of great natural beauty and picturesqueness, shaded nearly all

e centre of some wild nook, perhaps the head of a little valley one or two hundred yards long,

. Life, in all its forms, is most abundant near water. The rank vegetation nurtures the insects, and the insects draw the birds. The first week in March, on some southern slope where the sunshine lies warm and long

nia, and bloodroot may be counted on. A week later, the claytonia or spring beauty, water-cress, violets, a low buttercup, vetch, corydalis,

bird's-foot violet grows in great abundance, and is sparse in neighboring districts. This flower, which I never saw in the North, is the most beautiful and showy of all the violets, and calls forth rapturous applause

l, but is not in bloom till the 1st of May. It has a single white, wax-like flower, with a sweet, sickish odor, growing immediately beneath its broad leafy top. By the same run grow watercresses and two kinds of anemones,-the Pennsylvania and the grove anemone. The bloodroot is very common at the foot of almost every warm slope in the Rock Creek woods, and, where the wind has tucked it up well with the coverlid of dry leaves, makes its appearance almost as soon

hing the flowers. Only the forenoon walker sees them in all their beauty, as later in the day their eyes are closed, and their pretty heads drooped in slumber. In only one locality do I find the lady's-slipper,-a yellow variety. The flowers that overleap all bounds in this section are the houstonias

ind him by this date leisurely chanting his lofty strain; other thrushes are seen now also, or eve

eys. At night they are up and away. Some varieties, as the blue yellow-back, the chestnut-sided, and the Blackburnian, during their brief stay, sing nearly as freely as in their breeding-haunts. For two or three years I have chanced to me

observed the black and white creeping warbler, the Kentucky warbler, the worm

any other species with which I am acquainted. He is on the ground nearly all the time, moving rapidly along, taking spiders and bugs, overturning leaves, peeping under sticks and into crevices, and every now and then leaping up eight or ten inches to take his game from beneath some overhanging leaf or branch. Thus each species has its range more or less marked. Draw a line three feet from the ground, and you mark the usual limit of the Kentucky warbler's quest for food. Six or eight feet higher bounds

His back is clear olive-green, his throat and breast bright yellow. A still more p

ail, flirts, droops its wings, goes through a variety of motions when disturbed by your presence, and in many ways recalls its dusky prototype. Its color above is a light gray-blue, gradually fading till it becomes white on the breast and belly. It is a very

sh, and water-wagtail. It is one of a trio of birds which has confused the ornithologists much. The other tw

these thrushes, on a bright May day, flying to and fro between two spring runs, alighting at intermediate points, the male breaking out into one of the most exuberant, unpremeditated st

brown above and grayish white beneath, with speckled throat and

o do his best. He peeps quizzically at you from beneath the branches, and gives a sharp feline mew. In a moment more he says very distinctly, who, who. Then in rapid succession follow notes the most discordant that ever broke the sylvan silence. Now he barks like a puppy, then quacks like a duck, then rattles like a kingfisher, then squalls like a fox, then caws like a crow, then mews like a cat. Now he calls as if to be heard a long way off, then changes his key, as if addressing the spectator. Though very shy, and carefully keeping himself screened when you show any disposition to get a better view, he will presently, if you remain quiet, ascend a twig, or hop out on a branch in plain sight, lop his tail, droop his wings, cock his head,

lumage is remarkably firm and compact. Color above, light

his erect attitude, give him a decided soldier-like appearance; and there is something of the tone of the fife in his song or whistle, while his ordinary note, when disturbed, is like the clink of a sabre. Yesterday, as I sat indolently swinging in the loop of a grapevine, beneath a thick canopy of green branches, in a secluded nook by a spring run, one of these birds came pursuing some kind of

almost every day his uncanny note, ktr-r-r, ktr-r-r, like that of some larger tree-toad, proceeding from an oak grove just beyond the boundary. He is a strong-scented fellow, and very tough. Yet how beautiful, as he flits about th

eping black out of sight like a mantle, the front line of a thick forest bounds the sides. This emerald landscape is seen from a number of points in the city. Looking along New York Avenue from Northern Liberty Market, the eye glances, as it were, from the red clay of the street, and alights upon this fresh scene in the distance. It is a standing invitation to th

owth is oak and chestnut, with a thin sprinkling of laurel, azalea, and dogwood. It is the only locality in which I have found the dogtooth violet

iately in front, and lifting its four thousand tons of iron gracefully and lightly into the air. Of all the sights in Washing

8