THE BLUEBIRD. 15 
the bluebird, with his plaintive contralto warble, 
stirs the imagination, and is used as the poetic 
symbol of spring. The temper of the bluebird 
makes him a fit subject for the poet’s encomiums. 
Mr. Burroughs goes so far as to say that “the 
expression of his indignation is nearly as musical 
as his song.” 
Lowell speaks of the bluebird as 
‘* shifting his light load of song 
From post to post along the cheerless fence.”’ 
But although he is as restless and preoccupied 
here as elsewhere, lifting his wings tremulously as 
if in reality “shifting his load of song,” and long- 
ing to fly away, the bluebird sometimes comes 
down to the prose of life even here and actually 
hides his nest in the hole of a fence rail. When 
this is not his fancy he fits up an old woodpecker’s 
hole in a post, stub, or tree; or, if more social in 
his habits, builds in knot-holes in the sides of 
barns, or in bird-boxes arranged for his use. At 
Northampton I was shown a nest in an old stub 
by the side of the road, so shallow that the father 
and mother birds fed their young from the out- 
side, clinging to the sides of the hole and reaching 
in to drop the food into the open mouths below. 
Although the bluebird has such a model temper, 
it has not always a clear idea of the laws of meum 
and tuum, as was shown by a nest found directly 
on top of a poor swallow’s nest where there lay 
four fresh eggs! The nest is usually lined with 
