Neltje Blanchan

“ Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring--that delicious commingling of the perfume of arbutus, the odor of pines, and the snow-soaked soil just warming into life? Those who know the flower only as it is sold in the city streets, tied with wet, dirty string into tight bunches, withered and forlorn, can have little idea of the joy of finding the pink, pearly blossoms freshly opened among the withered leaves of oak and chestnut, moss and pine needles in which they nestle close to the cold earth in the leafless, windy northern forest. ”

“ High up in some evergreen tree, well out on a branch, over which the shapeless mass of twigs and moss that serves as a nest is saddled, four or five buff-speckled eggs are laid, and by some special dispensation rarely fall out of their insecure cradle. A sharp, loud whistle, wheu—o-wheu-o-wheu-o, rings out from the throat of this olive-sided tyrant, warning all intruders off the premises; but however harshly he may treat the rest of the feathered world, he has only gentle devotion to offer his brooding mate. ”

“ Presently rising on a gradually lengthened scape to elevate it where there is no interruption for the passing breeze from surrounding rivals, the transformed head, now globular, white, airy, is even more exquisite, set as it is with scores of tiny parachutes ready to sail away. A child's breath puffing out the time of day, a vireo plucking at the fluffy ball for lining to put in its nest, the summer breeze, the scythe, rake, and mowing machines, sudden gusts of winds sweeping the country before thunderstorms--these are among the agents that set the flying vagabonds free. ”

“ It blooms from June to August, and sparingly again in autumn. When daylight begins to fade, these long, slender-tubed buds expand to welcome their chosen benefactors, the sphinx moths, wooing them with fragrance so especially strong and sweet at this time that, long after dark, guests may be guided from afar by it alone, and entertaining them with copious draughts of deeply hidden nectar, which their long tongues alone may drain. Poised above the blossoms, they sip without pause of their whirring wings, and it is not strange that many people mistake them in the half light for hummingbirds. ”

“ You can tell a flycatcher at sight by the way he collects his dinner. Perhaps he will be sitting quietly on the limb of a tree or on a fence as if dreaming, when suddenly off he dashes into the air, clicks his broad bill sharply over a winged insect, flutters an instant, then wheels about and returns to his favourite perch to wait for the next course to fly by. ”

“ At your approach, the busy company rises on the wing, and with peculiar, wavy flight rise and fall through the air, marking each undulation with a cluster of notes, sweet and clear, that come floating downward from the blue ether, where the birds seem to bound along exultant in their motion and song alike.
In the spring the plumage of the goldfinch, which has been drab and brown through the winter months, is moulted or shed—a change that transforms the bird from a sombre Puritan into the gayest of cavaliers, and seems to wonderfully exalt his spirits. ”

“ To think that a plant related on one side to many of the loveliest flowers in Nature's garden--the azaleas, laurels, rhododendrons, and the bonny heather--and on the other side to the modest but no less charming wintergreen tribe, should have fallen from grace to such a depth! Its scientific name, meaning a flower once turned, describes it during only a part of its career. When the minute, innumerable seeds begin to form, it proudly raises its head erect, as if conscious that it had performed the one righteous act of its life. ”

“ Trailing its spreading branches over sandy ground, rocky hillsides and steeps until it sometimes forms luxuriant mats, it closely resembles its cousin the arbutus in its manner of growth, and has been mistaken for it by at least one poet. But its tiny, rounded, urn-shaped flowers, which come in May and June, are white, not salver form and pink; the entire plant is not rusty-hairy; the dark little leathery evergreen leaves are spatulate, and, moreover, it bears small but abundant clusters of round, berry-like fruit, an attainment the arbutus still struggles for, but cannot yet reach. ”

“ More shy of the haunts of man, and less gregarious than its cousins, it is usually to be seen during migration flying low over the marshes, ponds, and streams with a few chosen friends, keeping up an incessant warbling twitter while performing their bewildering and tireless evolutions as they catch their food on the wing. Their white breasts flash in the sunlight, and it is only when they dart near you, and skim close along the surface of the water, that you discover their backs to be not black, but rich, dark green, glossy to iridescence. ”