SPRING SONGSTERS 85 



the insect with a snap of their beaks, fly back to 

 the same perch. They are garbed in subdued 

 grays, olives, and yellows. The least flycatcher 

 has another name which at once distinguishes him 

 * chebec'. As he sits on a limb, his whole body 

 trembles when he jerks out these syllables, and his 

 tail s^aps as if it played some important part in 

 the mechanism of his vocal effort. 



When you are picking cowslips and hepaticas 

 early in the month, keep a lookout for the first 

 barn swallow. Nothing gives us such an impres- 

 sion of the independence and individuality of 

 birds as when a solitary member of some species 

 arrives days before others of his kind. One fork- 

 tailed beauty of last year's nest above the hay- 

 mow may hawk about for insects day after day 

 alone, before he is joined by other swallows. Did 

 he spend the winter by himself, or did the heim- 

 weh smite his heart more sorely and bring him 

 irresistibly to the loved nest in the rafters I This 

 love of home, which is so striking an attribute of 

 birds, is a wonderfully beautiful thing. It brings 

 the oriole back to the branch where still swings 

 her exquisite purse-shaped home of last summer ; 

 it leads each pair of fishhawks to their particular 

 cartload of sticks, to which a few more must be 

 added each year ; it hastens the wing beats of the 

 sea-swallows northward to the beach which, ten 

 months ago, was flecked with their eggs the 

 shifting grains of sand their only nest. 



