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 snaps 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 ! 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. 



