12 Zbc Warbler 



day, and the men were working so near that they could almost touch it with 

 their hands. These birds did not desert their nest until the young were old 

 enough to leave. The site was not used the following year as is usually 

 the case with the Phcebe. 



The instinct of sitting to hatch the young from the eggs is very inter- 

 esting and it would be curious to learn how it originated. 



Doubtless the first birds followed the practice of their progenitors, the 

 reptiles, and laid their eggs in the warm sand, leaving them for the sun to 

 hatch, and when chance led the hen to cover the nest, the eggs hatched 

 more quickly ; and by protecting them from the cold night air and the rains 

 they hatched more surely, and fewer eggs failed. In this way a tendency to 

 sit on the eggs may have been developed. However that may be, the instinct 

 is now well established and is very strong and seems to be sometimes used 

 with but little judgment. I have never experimented with our wild birds, 

 but the domestic hen will sit as surely, as faithfully, and for as long a time 

 on an empty nest as on one filled with eggs, and where nests are in boxes 

 adjoining each other, the hen, after going off for food, frequently goes back 

 into another box, leaving her eggs to get cold and spoil. The temperature 

 of birds is normally higher than it is in mammals, and during the sitting 

 period it is abnormally raised. 



THE BLUEBIRD. (Sialia sialis.) 



No bird has wormed himself into our affections more deeply than the 

 Bluebird. He charms us as he flits through the air like a painted arrow, re- 

 flecting the sunlight from the metallic lustre of his wings, while he pours 

 out his inspired song " in notes as sweet as angels' greetings when they 

 meet." He seems to have stolen the music from the lyre of Orpheus when 

 he stilled the tortures of the damned for his beloved wife in Hades. He 

 comes to us before the unfolding of the first bud of spring, sings to us until 

 our hills and mountains are covered with the richness of their summer ver- 

 dure and stays with us until the bitter frosts of winter change this verdure 

 to all the beauty of its autumnal glory. 



Fifteen years ago I noticed our Bluebirds were gradually though stead- 

 ily decreasing in numbers, but am glad to say that they are now regaining 

 their former abundance. 



wild pigeon. (Ectopistcs niigratorius.) 



Forty years ago the Wild Pigeons were quite plenty in the fall of 

 the year in this part of our state, but each fall they came in decreasing num- 

 bers, and for the last twenty or thirty years I have not seen a single bird. 

 The modern shot gun and fixed ammunition has been too much for the 

 Pigeon and I fear that he has gone from us never to return. 



HERMIT THRUSH. {HylocicJila guttata pallasii. ) 



There is no sweeter songster than the shy Hermit Thrush, and I am 



