FEBRUARY, “THE LONG-SHORT MONTH” 3815 
“When the breeding season is over, the birds travel 
sometimes in family groups and sometimes in large flocks, 
moving southward little by little, according to season and 
food-supply, some journeying as far as Mexico, others 
lingering through the middle and southern states. The 
Bluebirds that live in our orchards in summer are very un- 
likely to be those that we see in the same place in winter 
days. Next to breeding impulse, the migrating instinct 
seems to be the strongest factor in bird life. When the 
life of the home is over, Nature whispers, ‘To wing, up 
and on!’ So a few of the Bluebirds who have nested in 
Massachusetts may be those who linger in New Jersey, 
while those whose breeding-haunts were in Nova Scotia 
drift downward to fill their places in Massachusetts. But 
the great mass of even those birds we call winter residents 
go to the more southern parts of their range every winter; 
those who do not being but a handful in comparison. 
‘“‘Before more than the first notes of the spring have 
sounded in the distance, Bluebirds are to be seen by twos 
and threes about the edge of old orchards along open roads, 
where the skirting trees have crumbled or decaying knot- 
holes have left tempting nooks for the tree-trunk birds, 
with which the Bluebird may be classed. For, though 
he takes kindly to a bird-box, or a convenient hole 
in fence-post, telegraph pole, or outbuilding, a tree hole 
must have been his first home, and consequently he has a 
strong feeling in its favour. 
“As with many other species of migrant birds, the male 
is the first to arrive; and he does not seem to be particu- 
larly interested in house-hunting until the arrival of the 
female, when the courtship begins without delay, and 
