36 THE SPRING OF THE YEAR 



looked after by Nature as the round sphere of the 

 universe ! 



Once a year, usually after the nesting-season, it 

 seems a physical necessity for most birds to renew 

 their plumage. 



We get a new suit (some of us) because our old 

 one wears out. That is the most apparent cause for 

 the new annual suit of the birds. Yet with them, 

 as with some of us, the feathers go out of fashion, 

 and then the change of feathers is a mere matter 

 of style, it seems. 



For severe and methodical as Mother Nature 

 must be (and what mother or teacher or ruler, who 

 has great things to do and a multitude of little things 

 to attend to, must not be severe and methodical?) 

 severe, I say, as Mother Nature must be in look- 

 ing after her children's clothes, she has for all that 

 a real motherly heart, it seems. 



For see how she looks after their wedding gar- 

 ments giving to most of the birds a new suit, gay 

 and gorgeous, especially to the bridegrooms, as if 

 fine feathers did make a fine bird ! Or does she do 

 all of this to meet the fancy of the bride, as the 

 scientists tell us? Whether so or not, it is a fact 

 that among the birds it is the bridegroom who is 

 adorned for his wife, and sometimes the fine feathers 

 come by a special moult an extra suit for him ! 



Take Bobolink, for instance. He has two complete 

 moults a year, two new suits, one of them his wedding 



