38 Passing of the Bluebird 



arates field from garden should be no barrier, 

 but many are the birds that look upon the 

 paling or boards as a danger line to be crossed 

 with the utmost caution. In far more than 

 half of the farms I ever visited I was com- 

 pelled to go to the birds, not one of them 

 would come to me. They were looked 

 upon, if a thought was ever given to them, as 

 food for the cats or sport for the children, to 

 keep them from mischief. Can there be 

 greater mischief than that wrought by the 

 persecution and destruction of the birds that 

 ought to be about us ? 



Though the songs of a thousand birds ring 

 through the leafy arches of old woods, and 

 many a familiar strain steals through the 

 open window these long summer days, there 

 comes with them, all too surely, a tinge of 

 sadness that one of the merry host is miss- 

 ing, and not a melancholy thrush or warbling 

 vireo but seems to be voicing its own sorrow 

 or echoing ours at the passing away of the 

 bluebirds of blessed memory. 



