St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1891-05-28
THE COMING OF THE BIRDS.

Is there anything that more il
Illustrates the leading hand OF Provi-
dence than the homecoming of the
birds in spring, beckoned viewlessly,
brought surely, sometimes even to
the very nest that was their home
and held their hopes the year be-
fore?
Often when the last snow is flying
through the air, with all its battle
pinions spread, there is heard the
phebe-bird's gay strain, that in the
fall becomes such a 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 up to
make his nest in knot-hole of the
fence. Then, veritable April fool,
comes the king6sher, a flash of blue
and white light, 10 tunnel his wind
ing way in Northern sand banks;
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 grosbeak; and the
cat-bird hastens to pour forth
ravishing music over the emer-
aid green eggs in his deeply followed
nest. From tropical Brazilian
forests then, too, wings the indigo
bird, with it's ultramarine lustres.
From the islands of the Caribbean
sea comes the brown thrasher, 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 ro-
nance whirs along the rubythroat-
ed 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 Chin
ney-tops, and to fill the night with
the rustic of his busy wings; the
heavenly reverie' 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 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 jay is seen !;
and dear brown wood-thrush begins
his melodious melancholy, singing
most sweetly in the saddest, dark
est days; and then at last, reed-bird
in our middle ATTITUDES, rice-bird in
the Carolinas, ortolan in Italy 'glad
ness on wings, the bobolink 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 in our temperate
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
weather, sure of temperature, know
ing the points of the compass, defy
ing 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
crea lures, superhuman intellectual
ity P Harper's Bazaar.