Trying to write about spring when its 14 degrees on the windy corner of Boylston and Mass. Ave. is ridiculous. But it's true. Winter has left. Spring is here.

How do we know? Well, everybody has his own criterion. Some say that it must be because two swallows were sighted off the coast of Portugal yesterday, so it's spring in Europe. And after all, the latitudes of Lisbon and Boston are about the same--39 degrees and 42 degrees--so it must be spring here too.

The Savants know its spring because theses are pretty near due, the Cambridge cops are getting the idea because of the increase in speeding tickets for bright-red convertibles, and Radcliffe realizes it because "Drumbeats" is over and rehearsals are already in full swing for the April plays.

But the experts all agree that these are only secondary indications of the approach of the vernal equinox. The real reason, they say, is that Bruce Munro has taken his lacrosse men outside. With 50 masked men galloping around in front of Dillon waving long stocks, who could deny that spring has arrived.

And that's not all. The House basketball all-star game was last week, the University squash tournament has finally gotten around to the finals, and the hockey players are all relaxing in Cronin's. So winter must be over.

The crewmen have been braving the freezing spray of the Charles for weeks now, and Harvey Love seems to have figured out tentative boats, or at least the men in the "third" boat are pretty happy about holding the "first" boat to a deck-length lead over a half-mile. That's sure-fire proof.

Stuffy McInnis already is filling up Briggs Cage with a horde of little men who are swinging bats hopefully or throwing their arms out too early in the season. The ruggers are negotiating with the B.O.A.C. and the Elbow Beach Club for accomodations for their spring trip, and for the lucky institutions that have it, spring football practice is going great guns.

So it must be so. Never mind the temperature. All the coaches and the athletes say it's so. Spring is definitely here.