One can easily understand why the orioles should often choose the drooping spray of the elm for their pendulous nests—though they build in maples and locusts also—but it is not easy to see why so many different tribes should all show such a very decided preference for the maples. It cannot be from these trees coming into leaf earlier than others, since the willows, and poplars, and lilacs are shaded before them. Perhaps it may be the luxuriant foliage of the maple, which throws a thick canopy over its limbs. Or it may be the upward inclination of the branches, and the numerous forks in the young twigs. Whether the wood birds show the same preference, one cannot say. But along the roads, and near farm-houses, one observes the same decided partiality for these trees; the other day we observed a maple not far from a farm-house, with five nests in it, and a whole orchard close at hand, untenanted. The sumachs, on the contrary, are not in favor; one seldom sees a nest in their stag-horn branches. Neither the growth of their limbs, nor that of their foliage, seems to suit the birds.
Friday, 23d.—Very mild, sunshiny day; quite spring-like. We have just now soft, thawing days, and frosty nights, the first symptoms of spring. Cocks are crowing, and hens cackling about the barn-yards, always cheerful rustic sounds.
Saturday, 24th.—Very mild and pleasant. The chicadees are hopping about among the branches, pretty, cheerful, fearless little creatures; I stood almost within reach of a couple of them, as they were gliding about the lower limbs of a sugar-maple, but they did not mind me in the least. They are regular tree birds, one rarely sees them on the ground. The snow-birds, on the contrary, are half the time running about on the earth.
