March 16--The first phebe bird heard. Gulls and sheldrakes seen.
March 17--Grass green on south bank-sides.
The first flicker and red-wing seen; also a striped squirrel; also some
kind of fly.
March 18--The skunk cabbage, in moist grounds, abundantly in bloom,
attracting the first honey-bees, who, directed by a wonderful instinct,
leave their homes and wing their way, perhaps for miles, to find this
first flower. This seems all the more remarkable when it is considered
that the honey-bee is an introduced, not a native insect.
March 19--The first shiners seen in the brook.
March 20--Pussy-willow catkins in full bloom.
"The tree-sparrow is perhaps the sweetest and most melodious warbler at
present."
"The fishes are going up the brooks as they open."
March 21--The garden chickweed in bloom.
The ground-squirrel's first chirrup heard, a sure sign, according to
some old worthies, of decided spring weather.
The hyla, or tree-frog, begins to peep.
"The woods are comparatively silent. Not yet the woodland birds, except
(perhaps the woodpecker, so far as it migrates) only the orchard and
river birds have arrived."
March 23--The white maple in bloom and the aspen nearly so; the alders
are generally in full bloom. "The crimson-starred flowers of the hazel
begin to peep out."
March 24--Shore-larks seen.
March 28--Buff-edged butterflies seen.
March 31--The small red butterfly seen.
April 5--Swallows appear, pewee heard, and snipe seen.
April 6--Cowslips nearly in bloom.
April 7--Gold-finches seen; also the purple finch.
April 8--Pine warbler seen.
The epigæa (trailing arbutus) nearly in bloom. "The earliest peculiarly
woodland,[2] herbaceous flowers are epigæa, anemone, thalictrum (or
meadow rue), and, by the first of May, the violet."
April 9--Cowslips[3] (not a woodland flower) in bloom, "the first
conspicuous herbaceous flower, for that of the skunk cabbage is
concealed in its spathe."