54 Sketches of Some Common Birds. 



warble, to swallow the food at their leisure. Later in the 

 season they resort in families to meadows, pastures, and 

 stumpy woodlands, to feed on the grasshoppers, crickets, 

 and other insect food abundant in such places. 



In his rejDort concerning the food of the bluebird, Prof. 

 S. A. Forbes states that seventy-eight per cent, of its yearly 

 food consists of insects, eight per cent, of spiders, and the 

 remaining part principally of vegetable food. Other ob- 

 servers report that it feeds on the berries of the black and 

 the white mulberry, and it is said to swallow entire fruits 

 of the sour-gum (Nyssa) and the flowering dogwood. As 

 great numbers of seeds of the poison sumach have been 

 found in its stomach, it is possible that the bluebird and 

 other birds of similar food-habits may be instrumental in 

 spreading these and other poisonous plants. 



While we turn our ears expectantly at the breaking of 

 winter to catch the sweetl}^ plaintive melody of this hardy 

 bringer of good tidings, we are no less eager to hear the 

 more chastened plaint of our favorite in the closing days 

 of the season. Through the brown summer time and the 

 tinted autumn period we have almost ceased to hear the 

 saddened notes, and only occasionally, when the birds 

 were passing overhead at early morning, were the tender 

 warbles dropped like benedictions upon us. We begin to 

 fear that an untimely blast of winter will presently silence 

 the voices heard so rarelj^, and we select a typical morning 

 in late autumn to visit the woody pasture which we know 

 to harbor the few remaining individuals. Kobins are con- 

 gregating in the trees which support the clambering grape- 

 vines, and are feeding on the black fruit. Other species 

 are visiting the stores of food, or whisking about in the 

 bushes, uttering their farewell calls prior to their de- 

 parture southward. The clinking notes of the " peabody 

 birds," or white- throated sparrows, and the clear "ch- 

 wink" of the towhees arise from the brush. From the 

 trees come the sharp salute and frequent drumming of the 

 woodpeckers. But dearer to our ears are the voices which 

 have lured us afield so early, as they float down from the 

 higher regions, and we see the forms of our gentle friends 

 who are lingering to brighten the last few days of dying 

 autumn. Some of them fly over us high in the air, ap- 



