the English sparrows ! What a rebuke to city 

 manners ! 



They are the first to return in the spring ; the 

 spring, rather, comes back with them. They 

 are its wings. It could not come on any others. 

 If it tried, say, the tanager's, would we believe 

 and accept it? The bluebird is the only possi- 

 ble interpreter of those first dark signs of 

 March ; through him we have faith in the 

 glint of the pussy-willows, in the half-thawed 

 peep of the hylas, and in the northward flying 

 of the geese. Except for his return, March 

 would be the one month of all the twelve never 

 looked at from the woods and waysides. He 

 comes, else we should not know that the waters 

 were falling, that a leaf could be plucked in all 

 the bare, muddy world. 



Our feelings for the bluebird are much mixed. 

 His feathers are not the attraction. He is 

 bright, but on the whole rather plainly dressed. 

 Nor is it altogether his voice that draws us ; 

 the snowflakes could hardly melt into tones 

 more mellow, nor flecks of the sky's April blue 

 run into notes more limpid, yet the bluebird 

 is no singer. The spell is in the spirit of the 



