BLUEBIRD JOTTINGS 



Comes vernal sun and gentle rain, 



To nurse the flowers to life again; 



Comes bluer sky and swelling bud; 



Come secret whisp' rings of field and wood; 



While, flowing from out its rust-brown throat, 



Comes, sweetest of all, the bluebird's note. 



Blue for beau-u-ty (beauty), blue for 

 beau-u-ty. 



It was a sweet and mellow note that 

 greeted the ear, and we scanned the fence 

 posts and the branches of neighboring 

 trees in the hope of catching a glimpse of 

 the blue herald of the loitering spring 

 tide. 



Blue for beau-u-ty, blue for beau-u-ty. 

 In spite of the vanity expressed in his 

 assertion you can not help loving him, 

 for beautiful indeed he is in his bright 

 azure dress, and he tells you of it so 

 sweetly that you entertain no thought of 

 conceitedness. The flashes of blue from 

 his sky-coat, whether seen as he takes his 

 easy swinging flight through the air, or 

 as he darts to earth to pick up the insect 

 which his keen eye has detected, make 

 a pretty sight. Then, there is no note 

 from bird-land more pleasing. It is the 

 kind of tone one likes to hear from the 

 soprano of the church choir, clear, mel 

 low, serious, refined, exquisite. Added 

 to all his other attractions he possesses 

 the qualities of grace, dignity, and clean 

 liness. So many are his charms that we 

 are almost turned aside by them from 

 our real purpose, which is, to write the 

 simple story of the doings of our birds, 

 last season. 



This was the first time we had at 

 tempted to cultivate a close familiarity 

 with the bewitching fellow who "carries 

 the sky on his back." We had begun 

 planning very early in the season to at 

 tract him to our neighborhood, and if 

 possible, to our dooryard, and had con 

 structed a house of two apartments, with 

 round openings for entrance, in imi 

 tation of woodpecker holes. When the 

 birds' first notes apprised us of their 

 coming we fastened the little house upon 

 the roof of the coal shed, in full view 



from kitchen windows. The Bluebirds 

 were not long in finding it but had 

 a struggle with the English sparrows 

 before securing possession, for those 

 intolerable pests are so numerous and 

 impertinent that they quickly seek to 

 appropriate to their own use any niche or 

 crevice wherein a nest may be placed. 

 After our blue friends had obtained pos 

 session through the force of might, which 

 in this case we were glad to see triumph, 

 the female busied herself for a few days 

 with building the nest. What was our 

 surprise, however, to find the pair, later, 

 taking great interest in the mail-box close 

 beside the front door. The male was the 

 leading spirit in the examination of this 

 prospective home, and soon persuaded 

 his mate that it was a desirable place for 

 the nest. She forthwith began to carry 

 into the box little wisps of grass, as 

 though fully resolved to build there. 

 Why they forsook the nest so recently 

 built in the little house we had put at 

 their disposal we could not determine 

 with certainty, but our supposition is 

 that it was because the close floor of 

 their apartment retained the water which 

 had driven in at the entrance during a 

 hard rain, for we found the nest thor 

 oughly soaked. Seeing that they were 

 so strongly attracted to the mail-box, and 

 fearing they would not rear a family in 

 so exposed a situation, we hastily fash 

 ioned a new box of similar proportions, 

 with opening near the top, and placed it 

 under the cornice of the veranda, only 

 a few feet away from the mail-box, clos 

 ing the latter so that they could not get 

 into it. Within half an hour the birds 

 had taken possession of the new box and 

 began at once to build. We could watch 

 their operations from a near upstairs 

 window, if we but kept out of plain sight, 



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