The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-07-31
OUR SUMMER LODGERS.
Feathcred Friends That Add to the
Pleasures of Life.

Our apartments to let, are neither
spacious nor imposing, as they consist
mainly, of certain fruit and shade trees,
shrubs and vines and the shadowy recesses,
handy crotches and cunning retreats af-
forded by them. Despite such meager pro-
visions for their comfort we have, every
summer, a number of pleasant dodgers on
the European plan," in whom we are
greatly interested, and who provide us with
a variety of delightful entertainment, with
out ever resorting to the self-laudatory adj
vertising and stilted programming with
which dramatic, literary and musical stars
of the genus homo so persistently affiict
their fellow-creatures Among the earliest
arrivals are not a few. however, who soon
tire of such accommodations as we can af-
ford them, and, soon as they have
rested up a Bit" hurry on to the further
north" leaving us to conjecture as to the
causes of their dissatisfaction and wonder
whether the fault lies in the styles and fur
nishings of our apartments, or in the fare
to be obtained at the neighboring restau
rants, presided over by the local genii and
other servitors of the rich proprietress.
Dame Nature; or if they dislike the climate,
scorn our simple amusements and long for
a sharper atmosphere and more adventur-
Gus lives than ours.
A few of these passing tourists that re-
main long enough for us to take note of
them are several varieties of warblers, the
golden and ruby-crowned kinglets and other
small birds of beautiful plumage. quick
movements and slender songs. We are not
ornithologists. nor much versed in bird lore
having barely made the acquaintance of a
few of our summer and winter dodgers. John
Muir, the scholar and observer. who has
spent so many of his years in the study of
wild life in it's native haunts, tells us that
great numbers of these tiny migrants. as
well as others. members of whose families
remain with us all summer. swarm in the
mountain-walled valleys of Alaska and fill
them with animation and music. There they
find environments and climatic conditions to
suit their varied tastes and are happy as
long as the brief summers will allow. which
is long enough to permit the joyous yet
serious work of rearing and educating
young families to gladden. their abiding
places in the beautiful summers to come.
Almost the first of these feathered folks
to take apartments for the summer iseour
old friend Bono Robins and his plain but
industrious wife. Lowell tells US that, in
New England, 1t is well along towards the
first of June when,
"Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall
trees
An settlin' things in windy congresses
And soon afterward the
Gray boss chessnuts leetle hands unfold
Softer N a baby's be at three days old;
ThetS Robins aImanack: he knows
Thet arter this theirs only blossom SHOWS;
So choosin' out a handy crotch an spouse,
He goes 10 plast'rin' his adobe house."
But here the blackbird, like care, is with
US most of the year, and does not hesitate
to visit the kitchen door for crumbs when
sunny days come, even in mdwinter. Here,
too. the buckeye, the Western half-brother
to the horse chestnut, bursts it's buds and
the robins nest at an earlier date The robin
is always a favorite whose welcome is as
unstinted as his own princeiy generosity of
song. When, between the monday thaws
and the nightly freezes. reinforced, as the
latter often are by icy tempests or storms
of snow and rain, one is awakened some
suspicious morning just as the day is break
ing along the cast by such glad bursts of
warbed song as flow only from the throat
of the robin, how the whole face of nature
seems 10 change with the melody. The
chilly air and wintry gloom are forgotten.
glow OF warmth and returning Vitality
speeds out TO the very finger tips. while
visions Of sprouting grass and bursting BUDS