68 Bird - Lore 



sign at the cross-roads, "Lodgings, with a Home Table," and then retires 

 somewhat anxiously behind the living-room blinds, to await results, dreading 

 lest the appearance of eagerness should frighten new-comers, and relying 

 upon his past reputation alone to secure the return of old tenants. 



Yet we may do what we please to allure. The way of the bird is the way 

 of the wind, outside of certain supposedly set rules of highways of migration. 

 The novice or theorist (who has the same quality) is apt to think that an 

 April and May of fine weather promises best for a spectacular spring migra- 

 tion. As far as my garden is concerned, its record proves the contrary. An 

 interspersal of storms of rain, with high winds, through periods of sudden 

 sunny warmth have brought about some of the most wonderful "Warbler 

 Days" that I have ever known. 



By the first of April, it is safe to say, even in southern New England, 

 that spring is here. March will always be the football among months, 

 tossed and touseled between winter and spring until its identity is wholly 

 mergeable. 



When is it really spring? I once asked a seasoned farmer of the hill country, 

 whose ear, more than is usual, was open to the sounds and signs of other 

 things than the clink of coin. "Well," he began, hesitatingly, "you can't 

 safely reckon by the Bluebirds and Robins, 'cause they may be left-overs, nor 

 Phoebes, because I've seen 'em come and get froze out again, just like March 

 plowing. But when the peepers holler steady and unquenchable — thafs 

 spring, and a pretty close call on April the first." 



Here in my garden and the outlying marches (to use the good old English 

 term), — for it is impossible to set a fence boundary to the songs that float in 

 at the windows at dawn, or to fix an arbitrary limit to one's property- 

 rights in music, — there is a really thrilling, morning chorus of a soft first-of- 

 April dawn. Redwing, Robin, Song Sparrow, Bluebird, insistent Phoebe, 

 Meadowlark, Field Sparrow, the roll call of Flicker, with the spring notes 

 of the Crows, give warning that time for waging war against their annual 

 intrusion is at hand. 



One of the greatest garden excitements at this time is a double war that 

 is carried on between sundry Flickers and two pairs of magnificently- 

 tailed gray squirrels, for possession of the Flickers' tree-holes in a group of 

 old Sassafras trees, — theirs by hereditary right of years, even if the squirrels 

 do argue the law of possession. The squirrels have used the holes as store- 

 houses, during the winter, for the nubs of chicken corn that we serve 

 them for rations, since — the chestnut crop now being a thing of the past — ■ 

 they are threatened with a starvation that means total extinction. Comfort- 

 ably bedded in leaves and cedar bark these squirrels live in the houses pro- 

 vided for them, but persist in filling every possible bird-hole with their 

 plunder. 



On general principles, I hesitate to interfere in any tree feuds other than 



