16 MATESHIP WITH BIRDS 



red-blooded vitality, almost sufficient of inspiring 

 throb to make the approach of Persephone per- 

 ceptible to the dullard. 



'Twas Jack o' Winter hailed it first, 

 But now more timid angels sing: 



For what dull ear can fail to hear 

 Afar the fluting of the Spring ? 



All the Winter through Jacky of that ilk, the 

 Brown Flycatcher, has been disporting himself, like 

 Lowell's Blue-Bird, "from post to post along the 

 cheerless fence," or chanting his "Jacky-Jacky- 

 Jacky, Sweeter-sweeter-sweeter!" in the big dry 

 tree by the roadside. Now his penetrating pipe has 

 left the philosophic key and risen close to the 

 ecstatic, striking a responsive chord in the breasts 

 of those gems of the grass, the communistic Red 

 Robins, White-fronted Bush-Chats, and Yellow- 

 tailed Tit-Warblers. 



All the Winter through, too, the merry-making 

 Honey-Birds have been playing and chortling about 

 the blossoming eucalypts. Is it merely fancy that 

 on these crisp, bright mornings of early August 

 their notes have taken a higher range, or are they, 

 in truth, sensitive of the fact that nesting-time is 

 near? Possibly it is because the Honey-Birds live 

 "closer" to the sun that they, rather than other 

 birds of the Winter, are quick to detect the approach 

 of the nearing Spring. But the insectivorous birds 

 of the ground have noted a quickening of the pulse 

 of the earth, reflected in the steady increase of 

 insect-life, and, perhaps, the opening of the cheerful- 

 looking flowers of the sundew and "early Nancy." 

 And none is more apt to spread the glad tidings than 



