MARCH SWALLOWS 235 



look at him ! Oh-h-h ! '' The dinner might 

 " get cold," as the prudent housewife sug- 

 gested, but it did not matter. Such a color 

 as those bluebirds displayed was better than 

 anything that an eater could put into his 

 mouth. 



Yes, as I say, the birds are having their 

 innings. In whichever direction I walk, in 

 town or country, I am asked about them. 

 A schoolgirl stopped me in the street the 

 other day. " Can you tell me what that bird 

 is?" she inquired. A white-breasted nut- 

 hatch was whistling over our heads in a shade 

 tree. Possibly the study of live birds will be 

 as fashionable a few years hence as the wear- 

 ing of dead ones was a few years ago. 



On the 22d of March, as I stood listening 

 to a most uncommonly brilliant song sparrow 

 (now is the time for such things, before the 

 greater artists monopolize our attention) and 

 the outgivings of a too chary fox sparrow, the 

 first cowbird of the year announced himself. 

 Polygamist, shirk, and, by all our human 

 standards, general reprobate, I was still glad 

 to hear him. He is what he was made. 

 Few birds are more interesting, psychologi- 

 cally, if one wishes an object of study. 



