at I do not like to urge my claims on behalf of a pretty
garden.

The forest-trees are nearly all in leaf. Never did spring burst forth
with greater rapidity than it has done this year. The verdure of the
leaves is most vivid. A thousand lovely flowers are expanding in the
woods and clearings. Nor are our Canadian songsters mute: the cheerful
melody of the robin, the bugle-song of the blackbird and thrush, with
the weak but not unpleasing call of the little bird called _Thitabecec_,
and a wren, whose note is sweet and thrilling, fill our woods.

For my part, I see no reason or wisdom in carping at the good we do
possess, because it lacks something of that which we formerly enjoyed. I
am aware it is the fashion for travellers to assert that our feathered
tribes are either mute or give utterance to discordant cries that pierce
the ear, and disgust rather than please. It would be untrue were I to
assert that our singing birds were as numerous or as melodious on the
whole as those of Europe; but I must not suffer prejudice to rob my
adopted country of her rights without one word being spoken in behalf of
her feathered vocalists. Nay, I consider her very frogs have been
belied: if it were not for the monotony of their notes, I really
consider they are not quite unmusical. The green frogs are very
handsome, being marked over with brown oval shields on the most vivid
green coat: they are larger in size than the biggest of our English
frogs, and certainly much handsomer in every respect. Their note
resembles that of a bird, and has nothing of the creek in it.

The bull-frogs are very different from the greens frogs. Instead of
being angry with their comical notes, I can hardly refrain from laughing
when a great fellow pops up his broad brown head from the margin of the
water, and says, "_Williroo, williroo, williroo_," to which another
bull-frog, from a distant part of the swamp, replies, in hoarser
accents, "_Get out, get out, get out_;" and presently a sudden chorus is
heard of old and young, as if each party was desirous of out-croaking
the other.

In my next I shall give you an account of our logging-bee, which will
take place the latter end of this month. I feel some anxiety respecting
the burning of the log-heaps on the fallow round the house, as it
appears to me rather a hazardous matter.

I shall write again very shortly. Farewell, dearest of friends.

LETTER XI

Emigrants suitable for Canada.--Qualities r