50 



THE SPRING OF THE YEAR 



By that one sign you would know the bird had force. 

 He is afraid of nothing, not even the cold; and he 

 migrates only because he is a fly-catcher, and is 

 thus compelled to. The earliest spring day, however, 

 that you find the flies buzzing in the sun, look for 

 pho3be. He is back, coming alone and long before 

 it is safe. He was one of the first of my birds to 

 return this spring. 



And it was a fearful spring, this of which I am tell- 

 ing you. How Phoebe managed to exist those miser- 

 able March days is a mystery. He came directly to 

 the pen as he had come the year before, and his 

 presence in that bleakest of Marches gave the 

 weather its only touch of spring. 



The same force and promptness are manifest in 

 the domestic affairs of the bird. One of the first to 

 arrive this spring, he was the first to build and bring 

 off a brood or, perhaps, she was. And the size of 

 the brood of the broods, for there was a second, 

 and a third ! 



Phoebe appeared without his mate, and for nearly 

 three weeks he hunted in the vicinity of the pen, 

 calling the day long, and, toward the end of the 

 second week, occasionally soaring into the air, flut- 

 tering, and pouring forth a small, ecstatic song that>, 

 seemed fairly forced from him. 



These aerial bursts meant just one thing: she was 

 coming, was coming soon! Was she coming or was 

 he getting ready to go for her? Here he had been 



