tree Land, from which we will pick all the big bugs and slugs and things as soon 

 as we are a bit rested." 



February was a week old when I looked out, a little after sunrise, at the 

 apple-tree feeding-place below my bedroom window. I rubbed my eyes the more 

 clearly to see what was at first a confused mass of deep red and bright blue. 



The red proved to be a handful of waste cranberries, put out upon the prin- 

 ciple of giving all the variety possible, or the chance attraction of novelty. The 

 blue was not of the Jays that, as usual, were conspicuous winter residents, though 

 several of these boisterous, beautiful cowards were lurking nearby, and making 

 disagreeable remarks, in which the presence of the little Owl in the box had its 

 place. 



No, the blue was soft, rich, and unmistakably the color worn only by Blue- 

 birds in at least "near-spring." Three of them were there attacking the tart 

 fruit with all the vigor of Catbids at the beginning of the berry season. I could 

 not prove it by any scientific axiom, and yet I know that those birds had come in 

 the night, how far one may not guess ; for, in spite of their joy in the succulent 

 food, there was a sort of lassitude about their general actions that did not belong 

 to the roving flock of a dozen that had turned up at intervals all winter. 



With bills dyed red, they presently paused, cleaned the juice off by polishing 

 on the wooden shelf with a deft sidewise motion, and then they attacked the suet 

 with as much relish as the Chickadees. 



"Go down to the farm and see the new boxes I've put up for you," I said, 

 opening the window, and quite forgetting our different methods of speech : "They 

 may not be so pleasant as the holes in the apple-trees, but they have mostly 

 toppled over since you left in the fall, and my shingle houses are quite as good as 

 the fence-post and telegraph-pole lodgings of which you are so fond." 



The Bluebirds fluttered over to a lilac bush and, with backs toward the sky 

 and breast to earth, instantly merged in their surroundings, and became practi- 

 cally invisible as they settled for a rest. Then, as I looked and listened, a Song 

 Sparrow piped up down by the spring and the clear call "Spring o' the Year" 

 came up from the Grackle-plowed meadow, where some old stalks of buckwheat 

 still dangled seeds about the edges. 



"Mother Earth is surely turning over in bed," I said, "even though she is 

 not quite ready to throw off her covers and awake." The Bluebirds have come to 

 us, and tomorrow, perhaps, the Brown Creepers, Tree Sparrows and White- 

 throats, that have been with us since December, will move on, and some one to 

 the northward will look out of the window, and, taking heart even as I did, say, 

 "See, the spring migration has begun !" 



Yet; without the birds, February would be only the disagreeable long-short 

 month of broken promises. Surely, at this time of year in my garden, the birds 

 make the season worth the living. 



— Bird Lore. 



415 



