194 The Bluebird 
the sap is beginning to drop from the maple trees. 
These are indeed signs of spring! Now it is time to 
listen for the note of the bluebird. A plaintive note 
it is at first, but it will soon give place to a pleasing 
song, never loud, but always sweet and altogether 
suggestive of the warblers. 
How welcome it is,—that bit of blue and brown, 
flitting among the yet naked boughs of the old apple 
trees! We look for the bluebird in spring with a 
feeling different from that for any other bird during 
the whole year. His note awakens within us the 
assurance of the quick return of the spring beauty, 
and wake robin, and a whole troop of songsters. 
In a day or two Lady Bluebird will arrive, a very 
modest little woman, with less brightly colored plu- 
mage, and more retiring manners, than her lord’s. 
Now, if you are patient, you will have an opportunity 
to observe a most interesting courtship; for Mr. Blue- 
bird is an attentive lover, exhibiting to his lady all 
the charms of his beautiful plumage, singing to her 
his sweetest songs, and feeding her with the choicest 
bits of food to be found. In actual bird life it some- 
times happens that a rival appears upon the scene, 
and then many are the contests with voice and beak, 
until one or the other is vanquished. After this 
the courtship proceeds smoothly, and before long 
