Page:Rural Hours.djvu/75

Rh they are now rapidly increasing and spreading themselves over the country. The Rocky Mountains seem to have been their great rallying ground; they are found there in great numbers; and as the Prince of Canino observes, they have advanced eastward to meet the white man. These new-comers remain but a short time, about six weeks in June and July, and then disappear again, taking flight for tropical America. They are entirely unknown in Europe, or any part of the old world. They have more variety in their markings than most swallows.

Friday, 5th.&mdash;Fine shower last night, with thunder and lightning; everything growing delightfully. Such days and nights as these, in early spring, the effect produced on vegetation, by electricity and rain together, is really wonderful. M. de Candolle, the great botanist, mentions an instance in which the branches of a grape-vine grew, during a thunder shower, no less than an inch and a quarter in the course of an hour and a half! Really, at that rate, one might almost see the plant grow.

The young buds are coming out beautifully; the tufts of scarlet flowers on the soft maples are now daintily tipped with the tender green of the leaf-buds in their midst, and the long green flowers of the sugar maple have come out on many trees; yesterday, there were none to be seen. White blossoms are opening in drooping clusters, also, on the naked branches of the Juneberry; this is a tree which adds very much to the gayety of our spring; it is found in every wood, and always covered with long pendulous bunches of flowers, whether a small shrub or a large tree. There is one in the churchyard of great beauty, a tree perhaps five-and-thirty feet in height; and standing among evergreens as it does, it looks beautifully at this season, when covered