have just swelled perceptibly; and, brushing away the dry leaves and debris on a sunny slope, I discover the liverwort just pushing up a fuzzy, tender sprout.  But the waters have brought forth.  The little frogs are musical.  From every marsh and pool goes up their shrill but pleasing chorus.  Peering into one of their haunts, a little body of semi-stagnant water, I discover masses of frogs’ spawn covering the bottom.  I take up great chunks of the cold, quivering jelly in my hands.  In some places there are gallons of it.  A youth who accompanies me wonders if it would not be good cooked, or if it could not be used as a substitute for eggs.  It is a perfect jelly, of a slightly milky tinge, thickly imbedded with black spots about the size of a small bird’s eye.  When just deposited it is perfectly transparent.  These hatch in eight or ten days, gradually absorb their gelatinous surroundings, and the tiny tadpoles issue forth.

In the city, even before the shop-windows have caught the inspiration, spring is heralded by the silver poplars which line all the streets and avenues.  After a few mild, sunshiny March days, you suddenly perceive a change has come over the trees.  Their tops have a less naked look.  If the weather continues warm, a single day will work wonders.  Presently each tree will be one vast plume of gray, downy tassels, while not the least speck of green foliage is visible.  The first week of April these long mimic caterpillars lie all about the streets and fill the gutters.

The approach of spring is also indicated by the crows and buzzards, which rapidly multiply in the environs of the city, and grow bold and demonstrative.  The crows are abundant here all winter, but are not very noticeable except as they pass high in air to and from their winter quarters in the Virginia woods.  Early in the morning, as soon as it is light enough to discern them, there they are, streaming eastward across the sky, now in loose, scattered flocks, now in thick dense masses, then singly and in pairs or triplets, but all setting in one direction, probably to the waters of eastern Maryland.  Toward night they begin to return, flying in the same manner, and directing their course to the wooded heights on the Potomac, west of the city.  In spring these diurnal mass movements cease; the clan breaks up, the rookery is abandoned, and the birds scatter broadcast over the land.  This seems to be the course everywhere pursued.  One would think that, when food was scarcest, the policy of separating into small bands or pairs, and dispersing over a wide country, would prevail, as a few might subsist where a larger number would starve.  The truth is, however, that, in winter, food can be had only in certain clearly defined districts and tracts, as along rivers and the shores of bays and lakes.