with which the leaves unfold between sunrise and sunset, or during a night, is truly wonderful! The long, graceful catkins are drooping from the birches, and the more slender clusters are also in flower on the oaks. The beeches are behind most forest trees, but the leaves and some of the flowers are coming out here and there. It is given as a general rule, that those trees which keep their leaves longest in autumn are the earliest in spring, but the beech is a striking exception to this; preserving its withered leaves tenaciously even through the winter, but putting out the new foliage after many of its companions are quite green. The Comptonia or sweet-fern is in flower, the brown, catkin-like blossoms are nearly as fragrant as the foliage; it is the only fern we have with woody branches.
Evening, 9 o'clock.—The frogs are keeping up a vigorous bass, and really, about these times, they often perform the best part of the concert. Just at this season, the early morning and late evening hours are not the most musical moments with the birds; family cares have begun, and there was a good deal of the nursery about the grove of evergreens in the rear of the house, to-night. It was amusing to watch the parents flying home, and listen to the family talk going on; there was a vast deal of twittering and fluttering before settling down in the nest, husband and wife seemed to have various items of household information to impart to each other, and the young nestlings made themselves heard very plainly; one gathered a little scolding, too, on the part of some mother-robins. Meanwhile, the calm, full bass of the frogs comes up from the low grounds with a power that commands one's attention, and is far from unpleasing. It reminds one of the oboe of an orchestra.
