26 



The Bulletin. 



and cold. As many as fifteen individuals were found dead in a single 

 hollow of a tree in Guilford County. For several years after this 

 catastrophe a question often heard was: "What has become of the 

 Bluebird?" Normal food and climatic conditions are again result- 

 ing in the bird once more assuming something like its usual num- 

 bers. 



The Bluebird seems equally at home in the farmyard or in the 

 field or open woods, remote from human habitation. Always it is 

 the same cheerful, inoffensive little creature, whose very appearance 

 is calculated to cheer the heart. They mate early in the spring, are 

 affectionate parents, and care well for their young. 



It is said that geese, swan, eagles, and some other birds mate 

 for life, and if one is killed the survivor will rarely mate again. The 



Bluebird. 



(.After Beal, Farmers' Bulletin No. 54, Office of Experiment Stations, U. S. Department 



of Agriculture.) 



Bluebird does not take matrimonial matters so seriously. The writer 

 one spring placed a bird box on a tree in a yard near where two Blue- 

 birds had made their appearance. They at once took possession of 

 it, and in time four blue eggs were deposited. Then a cat climbed 

 the tree and caught the female on the nest. The male was much 

 distracted the next day and mourned constantly for his loss. The 

 day succeeding, however, he found a second mate. She laid five eggs 

 and in turn suffered the same fate as the preceding female. Then I 

 shot the cat. A third wife built her nest in the box and successfully 

 reared her young. 



