CHAPTER III 



THROUGH THE LOST RIVER VALLEY 



It matters little whether the wind be roaring or bleating, 

 there comes into the heart of the bird-lover March first a puls- 

 ing desire to see the first robin of the springtime. Almanacs 

 and calendars forgotten, the true bird enthusiast can tell the 

 first day of the first spring month by a certain quickened 

 sense of yearning for the feathered friends of a bygone year. 

 Unhappily, however, the first day of spring does not always 

 bring the first songster, and after a suburban trip afield on 

 that day had developed no birds save some storm-blown gulls, 

 I made up my mind to go south and meet the migration 

 midway. 



My pilgrimage took me to the valley of the Lost River 

 in southern Indiana. The grass had not yet taken on even a 

 tinge of green, but all the hillsides were glowing with the red 

 bloom of the maple. Some botanist will have to tell why 

 the grass was a laggard while the towering trees were aflush. 

 The native sparrows, the slate-colored snowbirds, and the other 

 gleaners of the ground in this part of Hoosierdom, must look 

 upward for their spring signs, and forget the withered grass 

 blades of a year that is gone. 



Southern Indiana, the land of the redbird, and alack, of 

 the red mud ! To hear the matchless whistling solo of the 

 one, the bird-lover must take rather more than a surfeit of 

 the other. Mud, mud, red March mud everywhere; but 

 above it all a flood of melody from a thousand throats. I 



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