ii6 Wild Bird Guests 



be far less of all of these if there were no birds. 

 We should be deprived of the sight of their won- 

 derful forms and colors and movements. How 

 much a flock of sea-gulls, wheeling and turning 

 and flashing sunlight from their silver pinions, 

 above the deep blue water of a bay or harbor 

 mouth, adds to the beauty of the scene. What 

 an air of cheerfulness a flock of pine grosbeaks, 

 or j uncos, or a brave band of friendly chickadees 

 gives to a leaden winter landscape. How much 

 of spring there is on the back of a bluebird, that 

 fluttering fragment dropped from the blue vault 

 of Heaven. No woods are dreary if the jays 

 or crows are calling; no field but is full of joy 

 if the bobolinks are sprinkling it with their song; 

 and he is not quite human whose heart does not 

 beat faster when at night and far above him he 

 hears the cry of the wild gander as he leads his 

 flying squadrons northward, homeward, through 

 the pathways of the skies. To a lover of nature 

 it seems there is no time or place that the pres- 

 ence of living native birds does not add to one's 

 happiness. In camp on a New England moun- 

 tain top in the cool daybreak of a summer morn- 

 ing, the wonders of the coming sunrise are 

 heralded by the voices of the hermit thrushes 

 rising in chorus from the dawn-lighted spruce 

 spires below. The loneliness of the marsh at 



