Page:Bird-lore Vol 01.djvu/17



A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE

DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS



HIS morning, May 5, as I walked through the fields the west wind brought to me a sweet, fresh odor, like that of fragrant violets, precisely like that of our little white sweet violet (Viola blanda). I do not know what it came from,—probably from sugar maples, just shaking out their fringe-like blossoms,—but it was the first breath of May, and very welcome. April has her odors, too, very delicate and suggestive, but seldom is the wind perfumed with the breath of actual bloom before May. I said it is Warbler time; the first arrivals of the pretty little migrants should be noted now. Hardly had my thought defined itself when before me, in a little hemlock, I caught the flash of a blue, white-barred wing; then glimpses of a yellow breast and a yellow crown. I approached cautiously, and in a moment more had a full view of one of our rarer Warblers, the Blue-winged Yellow Warbler. Very pretty he was, too, the yellow cap, the yellow breast, and the black streak through the eye being conspicuous features. He would not stand to be looked at long, but soon disappeared in a near-by tree. The Ruby-crowned Kinglet was piping in an evergreen tree near by, but him I had been hearing for several days. The Kinglets come before the first Warblers, and may be known to the attentive eye by their quick, nervous movements, and small greenish forms, and to the discerning ear by their hurried, musical, piping strains. How soft, how rapid, how joyous and lyrical their songs are! Very few country people, I imagine, either see them or hear them. The powers of observation of country people are not fine enough and trained enough. They see and hear coarsely. An object must be big and a sound loud, to attract their attention. Have you seen and heard the Kinglet? If not, the finer inner world of nature is