Year: 1873

The Blue. Bird.


When Nature made the blue-bird she
wished to propitiate both the sky and the
earth, SO she gave him the color of the one
on his back and the hue of the other on
his breast, and ordained that his appear.
ance in spring should denote that the
war between the two elements was at an
end. He is the peace hal binger in him
the celestial and terrestrial strike hands
and are fast friends. He means the fur.
row and he means the warmth he means
all the soft, wooing influences of the spring
on the one hand, and the retreating
footsteps of winter on the other.


After you have seen the blue.brd you
will see no more cold, no more snow, nc
more winter. He brings soft skies and
the ruddy brown of the fields.


1t is sure to be bright March morning
when you first hear his note; and it is as
| if the milder influences up above had
found voice and let word fall upon
your ear, so tender is it and SO prophetic
hope tinged with regret.


Bermuda Bermuda Bermuda :" he
seems to say, as if both invoking and la
menting, and behold Bermuda follows
close, though the little pilgrim may be
only repeating the tradition of his race,
himself having come only from Florida, the
Carolinas, or even from Virginia, where he
has found his Bermuda on some broad
sunny hillside thickly studded with cedars
and persimmon trees.


In New York and New England the sap
starts up in the sugar maple the very day
the blue-bird arrives, and sugar-making
begins forthwith. The bird is generally q
mere disembodied voice a rumor in the
air for two or three days before it takes
visible shape before you. The males are
the pioneers, and come several days in ad-
vance of the females. By the time both
are here and the pair have begun to
prospect for place to nest, sugar making
| is over, the Lass vestige of snow has dIsap-
peared, and the plongh is Frightening its
mould-board in the new furrow.


The blue bird enjoys the preeminence
of being the first bit of color that cheers
our northern landscape The other birds
that arrive about the same time-.he
sparrow, the robin, the phoebe -bird-are
clad in neutral tints, gray, brown, or
russell; but the blue-oird brings one of
the primary hues and the divinest of them
all.


This bird also has the distinction o
answering very nearly to the robin red.
breast of English memory, and was by the
ear ly settlers of New England christened
the blue robin.


1t is size or two larger. and the ruddy
hue of its breast does not verge so nearly
on an orange, but the manners aud habits
of the two birds are very much alike.
Our bird has the softest voice, but the
English red-breast is much the more
skilled musician. He has indeed a fine
animated warble, heard nearly the year
through about English gardens and along
the old he'd dge-rows, that is quite beyond
our birds instrument. On the other hand
our bird is associated with the spring as
the British species cannot be, being a
winter resident also, while the brighter sun
and sky of the New World has given him
coat that far surpasses that of his trans
atlantic cousin.


1t is worthy of remark that among
English birds there is no Wue-bird. The
cerulean tint seems much rarer among the
teathered tribes there than here. On this
continent there are at least three species
of the common blue-bird, while in all our
woods there is the blue,jay and the indigo
bird, the latter so intensely blue as to
fully justify it's name. There is also the
b!ue-grosbeck, not much behind the indigo
bird in intensity of color; and among our
warblers the blne tint is very common.


1t is interesting to know that the blue
bird is not confined to any one section of
the country; and that when one goes west
he will still have his favorite with him,
though little changed in voice and color,
just enough to give variety without mar
ring the identity.


The western blue-bird is considered a
distinct species, and is perhaps little more
brilliant and shovy than its eastern broth
er; and Nuttall thinks its song more
varied, sweet, and tender. Its color ap-
proaches to ultramarine, while it has a
sash of chestnut-red across its SHOULDERS
all the effects, L expect, of that wonderful
air and sky of California, and of those
great western plains; or if one goes little
higher up into the mountainous regions of
the West he finds the Arctic blue-bird, the
ruddy brown on the breast changed to a
greenish blue, and the wings longer and
more pointed; in other respects not differ
ing much from our species.


The blue-bird usually builds its nest in
hole in a stump or stub, or in an old
cavity excavated by woodpecker, when
such can be had; but its first impulse
seems to be to start in the world in much
more style. and the happy pair make a
great show of house-hunting about the
farm-buildings, peeping saucily into doors
and windows and crevices and knot-holes
now half persuaded to appropriate dove.
cot, then discussing in lively manner a
last years swallows nest, or proclaiming
with much flourish and futter that they
have taken the wren's house, or the tene.
ment Of the purple martin till finally ma
ture becomes too urgent, when all this
pretty make-believe ceases, and most o
!. them settle back upon the old family
/ stumps and knot-holes in remote fields, and
90 to work in earnest.


In such situations the female is easil,
captured BY approaching very steslthil,