BLUEBIRD. 289 
tion of his devoted consort, he avoids betraying the resort of 
his charge by a cautious and silent interest in their fate. Gen- 
tle, peaceable, and familiar when undisturbed, his society is 
courted by every lover of rural scenery; and it is not un- 
common for the farmer to furnish the Bluebird with a box, as 
well as the Martin, in return for the pleasure of his company, 
the destruction he makes upon injurious insects, and the cheer- 
fulness of his song. Confident in this protection, he shows 
but little alarm for his undisturbed tenement; while in the 
remote orchard, expecting no visitor but an enemy, in com- 
pany with his anxious mate he bewails the approach of the 
intruder, and flying round his head and hands, appears by his 
actions to call down all danger upon himself rather than suffer 
any injury to arrive to his helpless brood. 
Towards autumn, in the month of October, his cheerful song 
nearly ceases, or is now changed into a single plaintive note 
of ¢hay-wit, while he passes with his flitting companions over 
the fading woods; and as his song first brought the welcome 
intelligence of spring, so now his melancholy plaint presages 
but too truly the silent and mournful decay of Nature. Even 
when the leaves have fallen, and the forest no longer affords a 
shelter from the blast, the faithful Bluebirds still linger over 
their native fields, and only take their departure in November, 
when at a considerable elevation, in the early twilight of the 
morning, till the opening of the day, they wing their way in 
small roving troops to some milder regions in the South. But 
yet, after this period, in the Middle States, with every return 
of moderate weather we hear their sad note in the fields or in 
the air, as if deploring the ravages of winter; and so frequent 
are their visits that they may be said to follow fair weather 
through all their wanderings till the permanent return of spring. 
If the Bluebird ever tried the climate of Labrador, it evidently 
discovered that the weather there was not suitable, for now it rarely 
goes north of latitude 45°. A few pairs are seen every season 
about the farm-lands on the upper St. John, in New Brunswick, 
and Philip Cox has seen several at Newcastle, near the mouth of 
the Miramichi. Comeau found a pair breeding at Godbout,— the 
only occurrence reported recently from that latitude. 
VOL. 1. — 19 
