. Sharp eyes; a rambler's calendar of fifty-two weeks among insects, birds and flowers . h LMOST any bright, genial day nowwe may listen for the first note ofthe spring peepers, the tiny piping frogsthat wet their whistles in the lowlands,and whose shrill chorus at the watersedge will soon usher in the April twilights,and keep the stars dancing on the palpitatingripples until the dawn. What would our New Englandspring be without this faithful music from the bog?How many of our sweet-voiced vernal birds, the favor-ite theme of so many of our poets, might not listenwith profit at the swelling th
. Sharp eyes; a rambler's calendar of fifty-two weeks among insects, birds and flowers . h LMOST any bright, genial day nowwe may listen for the first note ofthe spring peepers, the tiny piping frogsthat wet their whistles in the lowlands,and whose shrill chorus at the watersedge will soon usher in the April twilights,and keep the stars dancing on the palpitatingripples until the dawn. What would our New Englandspring be without this faithful music from the bog?How many of our sweet-voiced vernal birds, the favor-ite theme of so many of our poets, might not listenwith profit at the swelling throat of the little Hylodes,whose pure strains have voiced the advent of springwithout the tribute of a sonnet, or even an appreci-ative quatrain — a voice in the wilderness, so far asany worthy recognition in poetic literature can show !Truly has Burroughs said that in Europe, where thisswamp music is unknown, such a chorus as that whichgoes up from our ponds and marshes would certainlyhave made an impression on the literature. There are a number of these sprightly piping frogs 4 J. and spring croakers which take to the water—or risefrom the mud — even before the ice has melted, eachsuccessively filling with music the brief period of itsnuptial season, during which the pellucid eggs are de-posited in the shallows. But the first voice that nowbreaks the winter silence, and gives the key-note to thechoir which soon shall follow, is pretty sure to be thatof the Hylodcs, whose bird-like whistle is well knownto every dweller in the country, even though the iden-tity of the singer has been a life-long mystery. Perhaps this first isolated peep is borne to us SHARP EYES across the withered rushes or cat-tails as we skirt theborders of the swamp, or perhaps from some hollownook in the woods, where the melting of a snow-drifthas left a glassy pool among the leaves, or even fromsome boggy bay at the brink of the stream—///<r, phcc, phcc, phec —ut-tered with briefpauses, and i
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
