Wednesday, 10th.—More or less rainy and showery for the last day or two. It has thus far been raining steadily all day, which does not happen very often; the fires are lighted again. Much too wet for walking, but it is pleasant to watch the growth of things from the windows. The verdure has deepened several shades during the last four-and-twenty hours; all the trees now show the touch of spring, excepting the locusts and sumachs, in which the change is scarcely perceptible. Even the distant forest trees now show a light green coloring in their spray, and the ploughed fields, sown with oats some ten days since, are changing the brown of the soil for the green of the young blades.
The rain seems to disturb the birds very little, they are hopping about everywhere in search of their evening meal.
Thursday, 11th.—Black and white creepers in the shrubbery; they are a very pretty bird, so delicately formed. A large party of purple finches also on the lawn; this handsome bird comes from the far north at the approach of severe weather, and winters in different parts of the Union, according to the character of the season; usually remaining about Philadelphia and New York until the middle of May. Some few, however, are known to pass the summer in our northern counties; and we find that a certain number also remain about our own lake, having frequently met them in the woods, and occasionally observed them about the village gardens, in June and July. Their heads and throats are much more crimson than purple just now, and they appear to great advantage, feeding in the fresh grass, the sun shining on their brilliant heads; more than half the party, however, were brown, as usual, the young males and females being without the red coloring. They feed in the spring upon the blossoms of flow-
