10 Bird Life Stories 



The female lays five, and sometimes six, eggs of a pale 

 blue color, and raises two and sometimes three broods in a 

 season, the male taking the youngest under his particular 

 care while the female is again sitting. Their principal food 

 consists of insects, particularly large beetles and others that 

 lurk among old dead and decaying trees, as well as upon the 

 ground. Spiders are also a favorite repast with them. In the 

 fall they occasionally regale themselves on the berries of the 

 sour gum and, as winter approaches, on those of the red 

 cedar, and on the fruit of a rough and hairy vine that runs up 

 and cleaves fast to the trunks of trees. Ripe persimmons are 

 another of their favorite dishes, and among other fruits and 

 seeds these are found in their stomachs during the autumn 

 months. 



The usual spring and summer song of the Bluebird is a 

 soft, agreeable, and oft-repeated warble, uttered with open 

 quivering wings, and is extremely pleasing. In his motions 

 and general character he has great resemblance to the Robin 

 Redbreast of Great Britain. Like the latter bird he is known 

 to almost every child, and shows as much confidence in man 

 by associating with him in summer as the Redbreast by his 

 familiarity in winter. He is also of a mild and peaceful dispo- 

 sition, seldom fighting or quarreling with other birds. His 

 society is courted by the inhabitants of the country, and few 

 farmers neglect to provide for him, in some suitable place, a 

 snug little summer-house, ready fitted and rent free. For this 

 he more than repays them by the cheerfulness of his song, and 

 the multitude of injurious insects he daily destroys. 



Toward fall, that is, in the month of October, his song 

 changes to a single plaintive note, as he passes over the 

 yellow, many-colored woods, and its melancholy air recalls to 

 our minds the approaching decay of the face of nature. Even 



