vociferate with all the clamor and confusion of a turbulent
political meeting. Politics, certainly, must be the occasion of
such tumultuous debates; but still, unlike all other politicians,
they instil melody into their individual utterances and produce
harmony as a general effect. Of all bird voices, none are more
sweet and cheerful to my ear than those of swallows, in the dim,
sunstreaked interior of a lofty barn; they address the heart with
even a closer sympathy than robin-redbreast. But, indeed, all these
winged people, that dwell in the vicinity of homesteads, seem to
partake of human nature, and possess the germ, if not the
development, of immortal souls. We hear them saying their melodious
prayers at morning's blush and eventide. A little while ago, in the
deep of night, there came the lively thrill of a bird's note from a
neighboring tree,--a real song, such as greets the purple dawn or
mingles with the yellow sunshine. What could the little bird mean
by pouring it forth at midnight? Probably the music gushed out of
the midst of a dream in which he fancied himself in paradise with
his mate, but suddenly awoke on a cold leafless bough, with a New
England mist penetrating through his feathers. That was a sad
exchange of imagination for reality.

Insects are among the earliest births of sprung. Multitudes of I
know not what species appeared long ago on the surface of the snow.
Clouds of them, almost too minute for sight, hover in a beam of
sunshine, and vanish, as if annihilated, when they pass into the
shade. A mosquito has already been heard to sound the small horror
of his bugle-horn. Wasps infest the sunny windows of the house. A
bee entered one of the chambers with a prophecy of flowers. Rare
butterflies came before the snow was off, flaunting in the chill
breeze, and looking forlorn and all astray, in spite of the