BLUEBIRD. 77 
before they were not to be found. Soon after their arrival they pay visits of inspection 
to all the nesting boxes put up for them in the orchard, on the posts or shade trees 
near the house. While the female bird is perched on a neighboring bough, her mate 
flies to the perch in front of the entrance of the prospective nest, and peeps in, not 
for a moment interrupting his warbling song. If the spot meets his expectations he 
calls, in the most tender tones, to the mate, hops about in a fluttering of excitement, 
with his wings quivering, and finally darts into the interior. There is hardly a more 
fascinating picture for man to contemplate than a pair of these beautiful, sprightly, and 
happy birds on and around their nesting box. The male always shows a touching 
solicitude and tender love toward his companion, such as I have never witnessed in 
any other of our birds, excepting the Baltimore Oriole. 
All the peculiarities of the Bluebird are so extraordinary and fascinating, and 
withal so wholly original, all its movements are so gracefully elegant; its manners so 
confiding and fearless; its song so melodious and soulful; its plumage of such rare 
brilliancy, that one can readily comprehend the love and kindly feeling the friend of 
nature has for it, and the eagerness with which its coming is awaited even long before 
the beginning of spring. We never grow weary and satiated with it, and even the 
hardest and most selfish human being cannot but love this attractive and affectionate 
little creature.—I remember well that, in my boyhood, a pair of these birds nested near 
my home in Wisconsin for years. They selected a hole in an old stump about twelve 
feet from the ground and close to the public highway, not far from the garden. I still 
recall the longing, with which I looked forward to their coming year by year. I became 
so attached to these birds afterward that, when I was obliged to live in the city, I kept 
them in the cage and could not be without their companionship for any length of time. 
If no accident befall, the pair will return year after year to the same old home, 
and, as a rule, will nest in the same old tree hollow, or in the same nesting box, where 
it has nested previously. Their favorite haunts are orchards and groves near the habi- 
tations of man, providing they find suitable nesting places. If these be lacking, they are 
compelled to go to the fields and woods, especially to the borders of the latter, where 
there are plenty of abandoned Woodpeckers’ holes. In Wisconsin, so rich in forests, I ob- 
served the bird much more frequently than in the prairie regions of Illinois where, as a 
rule, forest land is scanty and usually confined to the borders of rivers and brooks, 
Intelligent farmers who appreciate the extraordinary usefulness of these birds, lovers of 
the feathered tribe, and lovers of nature in general seek to gain the good will of the 
favorites by fixing convenient nesting boxes in fruit and ornamental trees. While I resided 
in the prairie near Freistatt in southwestern Missouri, nearly all the Bluebird boxes in my 
garden and the neighboring grove were inhabited, so that frequently broods were not 
more than a hundred steps from one another. In Texas, where our bird resides through- 
out the year, it is one of the rarer species, and is not nearly so confiding and friendly 
as in the North. I have seen it, however, revelling in great number in the orange groves 
of Florida where it makes itself perfectly at home. 
We do not find the Bluebird in the interior of the forest, and since the European 
Sparrow was imported and fostered with such care, it also shuns cities and towns, 
where it was once so common. In the country, however, where the House Sparrow has 
