42 Bird - Lore 



bring? With the first half of the month, come the tardy winter visitors 

 that have exhausted their more northerly feeding-grounds; the last half, 

 after the upw^ard curve of the span has been reached, and one steps 

 quicker, a straggling advance guard of spring appears — the armorer, w^ith 

 his creaking and filing of metal; the bugler, the minstrel and his more silent 

 brother the poet — the Grackle, the Redwing, the Robin and the Bluebird. 



Last week I heard a nature-loving friend say: " February is the poorest 

 month of the season out-of-doors; every year when it comes I wish that I 

 might curl up and sleep like a woodchuck or bear. It is merely a twin of 

 January and the rougher and more monotonous of the pair." 



This may or may not be, according to the chance of the particular 

 season. For myself, February has always been a month of surprises. In 

 February I can quite surely count upon seeing the lovely brown and white 

 Snowflake in company with dainty Redpolls in the field of wild grasses yonder. 

 The Crossbills and Pine Grosbeaks will visit the spruce knoll that has had 

 never a glimpse of them all winter. After a northeasterly snow flurry I scan 

 the marsh meadows hopefully for the great Snowy Owl, and I find the Horned 

 Lark and Lapland Longspur, or his telltale tracks, about the hayricks and 

 waste fields behind the shore huts. But best of all, after that central curve 

 has been rounded, is the first bit of spring color that tinges breast and 

 pinions as wings flutter through the bare trees and alders — ruddy breast of 

 Robin, azure spread of Bluebird and russet cloak of Song Sparrow. " Yes," 

 but perhaps you say, " I have seen these birds in every winter month." 



Surely, so there have been days and sunrises and sunsets in every month 

 of winter, but not the same as that day and the sunset thereof when, hearing 

 a scrap of rapid, insistant, half-nervous song, we rush out bareheaded and find 

 a Robin sitting alone, trying his throat. Not the winter wanderer, ill plumed, 

 scantily fed and anxious, darting hither and thither like a great wind-blown 

 leaf; but the Robin who^ in the far South, has felt the glow of spring, and its 

 impulse has bid him venture forth and proclaim it ahead of his fellows. 

 And faintly, afar on the air, comes a purling call; nearer and nearer 

 it grows until sound takes shape bearing the sky colors of a calmer, 

 milder clime than the one to which it has returned with the anxious expec- 

 tancy of one glad to be at home again. Ah! we should love and speak well 

 of February, since before it ends its brief days it often gives to us the joyful 

 braggart Redwing; the Robin, that sings to the ear; the Song Sparrow, that 

 speaks to the silent places of the soul, and the Bluebird, that quickens the 

 beating of the heart. M. O. W. 



THE AUDUBON SCHOOL LEAGUE 

 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT 



One of the principal objects of the National Association of the Audubon 

 Societies is to encourage the teaching and study of birds in the schools. To 



