The snow has gone from the landscape and the sun， at the hour of setting， has got round to the wood that crowns the hill on the other side of the valley. Soon it will set on the slope of the hill and then down on the plain. Then we shall know that spring has come. Two days ago a blackbird， from the paddock below the orchard， added his golden baritone to the tenor of the thrush who had been shouting good news from the beech tree across the road for weeks past. I don’t know why the thrush should glimpse the dawn of the year before the blackbird， unless it is that his habit of choosing the topmost branches of the tree gives him a better view of the world than that which the golden-throated fellow gets on the lower branches that he always affects. It may be the same habit of living in the top storey that accounts for the early activity of the rooks. They are noisy neighbours， but never so noisy as in these late February days， when they are breaking up into families and quarrelling over their slatternly2 household arrangements in the topmost branches of the elm trees. They are comic ruffians who wash all their dirty linen in public， and seem almost as disorderly and bad-tempered as the human family itself. If they had only a little of our ingenuity in mutual slaughter there would be no need for my friend the farmer to light bonfires underneath the trees in order to drive the female from the eggs and save his crops.

原野上的积雪已然消融，缓缓西沉的红日，已经转到谷地另一边山巅之上的那片树林。不久它将落下山坡，继而隐入平原。那时我们自当知晓春天已至。两天前，从果园下面的围场中传出一只乌鸫浑厚圆润的嗓音，加入了路对面山毛榉树上一只画眉嘹亮的歌声——这画眉最近几周都在放声传递佳音。我不知道画眉为何总是先于乌鸫窥见一年的曙光，或许是因为它惯于选择树冠的枝条栖身，故而视野开阔，相较于一向偏好低枝的金嗓子乌鸫，更易察觉世间春意。大概也正是栖居高处的习惯，解释了白嘴鸦何以早早地活跃起来。它们平素就在附近吵吵嚷嚷，但从未像二月的最后几天这般喧噪，此时它们分散成一个个小家庭，在榆树最高的枝头，因杂乱无序的家务安排吵得不可开交。它们是一帮可笑的无赖，当众将自家的丑事统统抖落出来。它们不守秩序，脾性暴躁，似乎无异于人类的家庭。倘若它们有一丁点我们自相残杀时暗藏的心机，我的农民朋友又何需在树下燃起篝火，赶走孵蛋的雌鸟，以使他的庄稼免受其害。

A much more amiable little fellow， the great tit， has just added his modest assurance that spring is coming. He is not much of a singer， but he is good hearing to anyone whose thoughts are turning to his garden and the pests that lurk therein for the undoing of his toil. The tit is as industrious a worker in the garden as the starling， and， unlike the starling， he has no taste for my cherries. A pair of blue tits have been observed to carry a caterpillar to their nest， on an average every two minutes for the greater part of the day. That is the sort of bird that deserves encouragement—a bird that loves caterpillars and does not love cherries. There are very few creatures with so clean a record. So hang out the cocoanut3 as a sign of goodwill.

大山雀，一个可爱得多的小家伙，刚刚也添加了他的歌声，以其特有的低调担保春天的到来。它算不上出色的歌手，但对于任何心系花园、唯恐潜伏其中的害虫糟蹋自己心血的人而言，它的歌声却悦耳动听。山雀与椋鸟一样在园中勤勉劳作，但不同于椋鸟的是，山雀对我的樱桃毫无胃口。有人观察到，一对蓝冠山雀夫妇在一天中大部分时间里，平均每隔两分钟就会将一条毛毛虫衔回巢里。这种鸟儿值得我们鼓励它光临——因为它喜食毛毛虫而不爱吃樱桃。世间鲜有生灵能够保持如此清白的纪录。所以，姑且挂上椰壳，聊表一份善意。