fact that it denotes the
proper weather for "sugaring," namely, cold nights and warm days. Our
saccharine associations, however, remain so obstinately tropical, that
it seems almost impossible for the imagination to locate sugar in New
England trees; though it is known that not the maple only, but the birch
and the walnut even, afford it in appreciable quantities.

Along our maritime rivers the people associate April, not with
"sugaring," but with "shadding." The pretty _Amelanchier Canadensis_ of
Gray--the _Aronia_ of Whittler's song--is called Shad-bush or Shad-blow
in Essex County, from its connection with this season; and there is a
bird known as the Shad-spirit, which I take to be identical with the
flicker or golden-winged woodpecker, whose note is still held to
indicate the first day when the fish ascend the river. Upon such slender
wings flits our New England romance!

In April the creative process described by Thales is repeated, and the
world is renewed by water. The submerged creatures first feel the touch
of spring, and many an equivocal career, beginning in the ponds and
brooks, learns later to ignore this obscure beginning, and hops or
flutters in the dusty daylight. Early in March, before the first male
canker-moth appears on the elm-tree, the whirlwig beetles have begun to
play round the broken edges of the ice, and the caddis-worms to
crawl beneath it; and soon come the water-skater _(Gerris)_ and the
water-boatman _(Notonecta)_. Turtles and newts are in busy motion when
the spring-birds are only just arriving. Those gelatinous masses in
yonder wayside-pond are the spawn of water-newts or tritons: in the
clear transparent jelly are imbedded, at regular intervals, little
blackish dots; these elongate rapidly, and show symptoms of head and
tail curled up in a spherical cell; the jelly is gradually absorbed for
their nourishment, until on some fine morning each elongated dot gives
one vigorous wriggle, and claims thenceforward all the privileges
attendant on this dissolution of the union. The final privilege is often
that of being suddenly snapped up by a turtle or a snake: for Nature
brings forth her creatures liberally, especially the aquatic ones,
sacrifices nine-tenths of them as food for their larger cousins, and
reserves only a handful to propagate their race, on the same profuse
scale, next season.

It is surprising, in the midst of our Museums and Scientific Schools,
how little we yet know of t