74 INSESSORES. 



and so when the bell was rung she peeped out to see 

 if the workmen retreated, and if not, she remained 

 quietly on her nest. 



One of the sweetest as well as the most familiar 

 notes with which we are acquainted, is that of the 

 Bluebird. He is among the earliest visitors from 

 the South, even coming to us from a great distance 

 to pass a few warm, bright days before the close of 

 Winter, disappearing, however, at the return of severe 

 cold. But no sooner has the first breath of Spring 

 offered him a more certain inducement to remain, 

 than he is seen flitting cheerily about the farm-house 

 and along the fence-rows, uttering his soft and plain- 

 tive warble with a degree of innocence which no 

 sensitive heart could fail to appreciate. He early 

 visits his old haunts about the wood-shed and out- 

 houses, examining the spot where his last year's nest 

 was built, and with all the ardor and zeal of a new- 

 born affection he assists his mate in rearranging the 

 materials for their abode, which is often in a box 

 made for his use and nailed to a post in the garden; 

 but not unfrequently he builds in the hole of some 

 decayed tree or old gate-post. The writer once saw 

 one of these nests which had been built at the bot- 

 tom of a hole in a gate-post, from which it required 

 some ingenuity on the part of the old birds to effect 

 the escape of their young, the hole being too deep 

 for them to get out alone. This difficulty they had 

 overcome by placing a few small sticks on one side 

 of the hole in the form of a ladder, by which means 

 they could crawl out. The Bluebird sometimes no 



