XVII. 
HE blue birds and robins seen in Pine Hills 
the past winter and still to be seen in favor- 
able localities are the stayovers and transient 
visitors. After the passing of freaky March they 
will move on to adjoining States farther east 
and north. Not until the mild days of April 
break the frost-bound fields will the summer bird 
come. When the coltsfoot (earliest spring 
blossom) lifts its golden crest to the sun; when 
earthworms, the beetle and other burrowing in- 
sects come to the surface for air and light; when 
the table is spread, then will come the summer 
birds,— robins, bluebirds, songsparrows, meadow . 
larks, starlings and others, to join the a eke 
awakening, the carnival of song, of love-making, 7 a 
home-building and domesticity. 
Two winters since a group of birds were fre- 
quent visitors to the neighborhood of South Allen 
street where it crosses and Pine avenue where it 
breaks at the ravine a little farther west. It is 
safe to say that nearly every midwinter a small 
party of bluebirds or robins or both may be 
seen roaming not “in the gloaming,” but by 
broad daylight about the south and west suburbs 
of Pine Hills. Sometimes they venture to the 
localities of the previous summer’s nest quite to 
the interior of its streets and avenues. 
It is not always severity of winter that drives 
our birds south. The insufficiency of food is 
often the moving cause. 
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