Morning journal and courier., 1891-06-05
What Brings the Birds nackf


 Is there anything that more illustrates the leading hand of providence than the homecoming of the birds in spring, beck oned viewlessly, brought surely, some times even to the very nest that was their home and held their hopes the year beforel
 Often when the last snow storm is flying through the air, with all his battle pinions spread, there is heard the phoebe birds gay strain, that in the fall becomes such a minor melody; and the sweet song spar TOW and the home loving robin are on hand; and by the middle of March, or even earlier, the bluebird hurries up to make his nest in knot hole of the fence. Then, veritable April fool, comes the kingfisher, a flash of blue and white light, to tunnel his winding way in northern sand banks; a 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 fol- lows after, while May day sees the fearless king bird, with his black and orange and azure and vermillion, 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 grosbeak, and the catbird hastens | to pour forth lavishing music over the | emerald green eggs in his deeply hollowed nest. From tropical Brazilian forests then, too, wings the indigo bird, with his ultra marine lustres. From the islands of | the Caribbean sea comes the brown thrash CT, as the country people call him, singing | in the night, cousin of the mocking bird, and from the Bahamas blazes into sight | the scarlet tanager. From unknown lands | of passion and romance whirrs along the | ruby -throated humming bird; the oriole, | like 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 fill the night with the rustic of his busy wings; the heavenly reyerie" of the red-eyed vireo's song is to be guessed; the whippoorwill beside 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-stIeaked eggs in the nest they never staid to build, but scratched out of hollow in the ground; the blue and black and white patchwork of the jay is seen; the dear brown wood thrush begins his melodious melancholy, singing most sweet ly in the saddest, darkest days; and then at last, reedbird in our middle latitude, ricebird in the Carolinas, ortolan in Italy, "gladness on wings, the bobolink is herei" Up the birds come from the other side of the globe, from the equatorial heats, to build their homes and nourish their young in ouritemperate regions, till the sky and the meadow, 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 wealth CT, 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 it not to give them, tiny, inarticulate cres- tures. a superhuman intellectualityl