82 BIRD PARADISE 



They had some difaculties to surmount in getting 

 their house in order, and for a time I was quite 

 doubtful about their success in the enterprise. 

 The youngsters graduated in due time, and I 

 concluded that some of them would occupy the 

 old homestead every season. In a certain way 

 they have. Each spring they come to the old 

 place, and for several days hold a sort of bird car- 

 nival. I get the notion each time that it is a kind 

 of house-warming given by the pair that have 

 just set up housekeeping in the old home. Each 

 time, however, I have been mistaken. Since that 

 first season there has been the annual gathering 

 at the old hearthstone, any amount of fl.icker fun 

 and talk but no family life has come from it. 

 As I write this I glance from my study window, 

 and there the birds are busy with their regular 

 spring orgies. I say orgies, for the word seems 

 to express exactly what they are doing. Half 

 an hour ago they came balancing down from 

 Burritt's Hill, six of them in all, and their rol- 

 licking call has been the very pulse beat of the 

 village air ever since. They dart about among 

 the trees apparently as full of fun as a party of 

 boys. Up the trunks of the maples they scramble, 

 chasing each other around the great limbs, ever 

 on the move. If they have looked in at the old 



