Impressions 



ture. They were so some years ago, until their 

 home, or headquarters, where they nested reg- 

 ularly and roosted nightly, was destroyed. 

 They were as firmly established as poultry in 

 the yard, or the English sparrows. It required 

 no persistent observation to see them, daily; 

 not more than to see the sky. Perhaps it will 

 be so again. It is five months since they have 

 come back. No sooner were the wires strung, 

 than the birds accepted the situation. Drifting 

 on the wandering gusts of March, they found 

 here a haven of rest and since then, not for a 

 day, have they forsaken it. Where these blue 

 birds nested, I do not know, but many young 

 birds appeared in due season. Electricity has 

 done much for us of late, but nothing better, to 

 my mind, than re-establishing the blue-birds. 



Hot weather sounds are usually heard singly 

 but, to-day, following so closely, there was no 

 intervening moment of silence, were the cicada, 

 the great crested fly-catcher, the cuckoo and the 

 indigo bird. The first and last are the hottest 

 sounds I know of. They mean summer to me 

 as nothing else does. The fervent heat that 

 sets the air over the fields all a,-trembling ; the 



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