Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1891-05-15
THE COMING or TIE BIRDs.
Led bya Hand Won Cnnno, See.

Is there anything that more illustrates
the leading hand OF Providence than the
Homecoming of the birds i'm spring. beck
oned viewlessly, brought surely, sometimes
even to the very nest that was their home
and held their hopes the year before?
Often when the last snow storm is flying
through the air, with all his battle pinions
spread, there is heard the phpbe-brd's gay
strain, that in the fall becomes such minor
melody; and the sweet song-Sparrow and
the home-loving robin are on hand; and by
the middle of March, or even earlier. the
blue-bird hurries mp To make his nest in a
knot-hole of the fence Then. a veritable
April fool. comes the kingfisher. a flash of
blue and white light, to tunnel his winding
way in Northern sand blnks: fortnight
later the ruby-crOwned wren-a pinch of
feathers-brings to the evergreen pines the
latest word from the palms of Mexico. and
the great blue heron is among the hidden
pools. The steel blue cliff-swallow follows
after; while May day sees the fearless king
bird, with his black and orange and azure
and vermilion, from underneath the peaks
of Darien, TO be chased and fought by the
purple martin, who makes a morSel OF the
great gold cockchafers when they come
With them flashes along the roSe-breasted
forth ravishing music over the emerald
green eggs in his deeply followed nest.
From tropical Brazilian forests then, too
wings the indigo-bird, with its ultramarine
lustres. From the islands of the Caribbean
sea comes the brown thrashcr as the coun-
try people call him, singing in the night.
cousin of the mockng-bird, and from the
Bahamas blazes into sight the scarlet tan
ager. From unknown lands of passion and
romance whrs along the ruby-throated
humming-bird; the oriole, like a flake of
fire let loose, burns among the woOlly buds
of the orchard depths: the swift begins to
build in the chimney-tops, and to ill the
night with the rustic of his busy wings: the
heavenly reYerie' of the red-eyed Vireos
song is To be guessed the whippoorwill be-
side the river shores at night is uttering his
pathetic measure while chasing his frail
prey, and while his mate sits on her creamy
and lavender streaked eggs in the nest they
never staid To build, but scratched out of a
hollow in the ground; the blue and black
and white patchwork OF the iay is seen:
the dear brown wood-thrush begins his me
lodious melancholy, singing most sweetly
in the saddest, darkest days: and then at
last, reed-bird in our middle ATTITUDES. rice
bird in the Carolinas, ortoan in Italy.
'gladness on wings, the bobOlnk is here
Up the birds come from the other side of
the globe, from the equatorial heats, to build
their homes and nourish their young i'm our
temperate regions, till the sky and the mea-
dow, the orchard and the forest depths,
swarm with them. And to say that they
come over desert and sea and mountain
range, aware of wind and weather, sure of
temperature, knowing the points of the
compass, defying storm, and reaching at
length the very point from which, the fall
before, they started, brought by their own
instinct or intelligence, is il not to give
them, tiny inarticulate creatures, a super
human intellectuality?-H drper's Bdzdr.