I02 BIRD PARADISE 



guards interposed in the same nest. If it be not 

 reason, what is it ? 



I do not recall a year when the wealth of robin 

 life was so pronounced as it is this spring. They 

 have come in large numbers and almost as soon 

 as they arrive they take up the duties of house- 

 keeping. Some writers say that the male birds 

 arrive first, the females following in three or four 

 days. This year, however, the birds seemed to 

 have been paired when they came. I suppose 

 that when the spring quota of birds is large it is 

 good evidence that all, or nearly all, of the birds 

 reared in this section last year have come back 

 to the old haunts. Sometimes all the birds of a 

 locality perish one way and another during the 

 winter migration. It usually takes three or four 

 years to restore the loss. Just here I notice from 

 my study window a pair of red-breasted fellows 

 putting grass and mud into place, shaping one 

 of their summer cottages. Both birds work at it 

 and both seem equally skilful. "When they are 

 nest building I have a notion that they spend but 

 little time seeking the daily bread. It is all there 

 in the brown earth, suited exactly to their taste, 

 but they seem to have no time or inclination to 



