mencing their feast before the buds are well open. From the moment they arrive, you see them running about the apple branches as if already on the watch, and so long as the trees are in bloom, you may hear their full, clear voices in the orchards at most hours of the day. Probably they like other flowers also, since the apple-trees are not indigenous here, and they must have begun to feed upon some native blossoms of the forest; they are occasionally seen in the wild cherry-trees, and are said to be partial to the tulip-trees also; but these last do not grow in our neighborhood. Mr. Wilson says the Baltimore oriole is not found in the pine countries, and yet they are common birds here—regular members of our summer flock; and we have remarked they are very often seen and heard among the pines of the churchyard; it is quite a favorite haunt of theirs.
The orchard oriole, a much plainer bird, is a stranger here, though common at no great distance. If they visit us at all, it must be rarely; we have never yet seen them about the lake.
Wednesday, 12th.—On one of the hills of Highborough, several miles from the village, there is a point where, almost every spring, a lingering snow-bank is seen long after the country generally looks pleasant and life-like. Some years it lies there in spite of warm rains, and south winds and sunshine, until after the first flowers and butterflies have appeared, while other seasons it goes much earlier. Time gives greater consistency and powers of endurance to ice and snow, just as a cold heart grows more obdurate with every fruitless attempt to soften its fountains; old snow in particular, wears away very slowly—as slowly as an old prejudice! This handful of ice lying so late on Snow-Patch Hill, would doubtless prove, in a colder region, or among higher hills,
