Why Birds Come and Go 



two on their way to Canadian forests, where so many 

 nest. These are the days when one grudges every 

 moment that must be spent in the house ; such rare 

 guests do us the honor to pause awhile at our very 

 doors, affording us, if not an opportunity for inti- 

 mate acquaintance, at least the chance to know them 

 again by sight. Within six months increased num- 

 bers of these warblers will stop again for a hasty 

 lunch of insects, in the garden shrubbery and or- 

 chard, to refresh themselves on their journey back 

 to the Gulf States, Central or South America or the 

 West Indies. Clever little creatures, thus to live in 

 perpetual summer! Some of the old birds having 

 exchanged their wedding clothes for more quiet 

 suits, and some of the young ones not yet wearing 

 the feathers of maturity described in the books, the 

 poor novice is often sadly bewildered in autumn, by 

 not recognizing in its change of clothes a species he 

 may have identified easily in spring. He misses, 

 too, the characteristic songs and call -notes of the 

 courting season; because the autumn travelers are 

 mostly silent, they slip by unobserved. 



The migrants, then, must be classed among one's 

 fair-weather friends, and these, like human ones, 

 alas! constitute the largest class. But no reproach 

 on the birds is intended by this comparison : theirs is 

 a motive compelling desertion when conditions of 

 life become too hard for endurance in our neighbor- 

 hood. Thus the robin and bluebird remain con- 

 stant residents in some favored parts of the United 

 States, while, in others, conditions make of them sum- 

 mer residents only. You may know the wood-thrush 

 as a migrant, while to me he may be a near neigh- 



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