THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS. 5 



snap with snow comes on, and it may be a week before 

 I hear the note again, and this time or the next per- 

 chance see the bird sitting on a stake in the fence lift- 

 ing his wing as he calls cheerily to his mate. Its notes 

 now become daily more frequent ; the birds multiply, 

 and, flitting from point to point, call and warble more 

 confidently and gleefully. Their boldness increases 

 till one sees them hovering with a saucy, inquiring air 

 about barns and out-buildings, peeping into dove-cotes, 

 and stable windows, inspecting knot-holes and pump- 

 trees, intent only on a place to nest. They wage war 

 against robins and wrens, pick quarrels with swallows, 

 and seem to deliberate for days over the policy of tak- 

 ing forcible possession of one of the mud-houses of the 

 latter. But as the season advances they drift more 

 into the background. Schemes of conquest which 

 they at first seemed bent upon are abandoned, and they 

 settle down very quietly in their old quarters in remote 

 stumpy fields. 



Not long after the bluebird comes the robin, some- 

 times in March, but in most of the Northern States 

 April is the month of the robin. In large numbers 

 they scour the fields and groves. You hear their pip- 

 ing in the meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. 

 Walk in the woods, and the dry leaves rustle with the 

 whir of their wings, the air is vocal with their cheery 

 call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, 

 scream, chase each other through the air, diving and 

 sweeping among the trees with perilous rapidity. 



