BLUE GROSBEAK. 



Guirnca caerulea Swainson. 



Plate XVIII. Fig. 5. 



There are moments of life that we never forget. 



Which brighten and brighten as time steals away ; 



They give a new charm to the happiest lot, 



And they shine on the gloom of the loneliest day. 



Anon. 



g^HE northern woodlands awaken from their winter sleep to real life when spring 

 J sends its first heralds, the Song Sparrow, Robin, and Bluebird. But not until 

 May and June do the forests really resound with the thousand-voiced chorus of their 

 plumed inhabitants. During the early part of June the grand and exhilerating concert 

 of the woodlands inspires even the indolent with delight and poetical emotions. This 

 concert would seem incomplete were any of the Vireos, Warblers, Tanagers, Thrushes, 

 or Woodpeckers absent. Their united efforts are indispensable. Further south in the Gulf' 

 region it is somewhat different, for there the woods are almost perpetually enlivened by 

 numerous birds, and though they do not sing regularly, they often warble parts of their 

 lays. In these southern woods winter is doubtless quite apparent also. Most of the 

 trees have lost their foliage, and only the pines, the live-oaks, the grand evergreen 

 magnolias, the loblolly bay, red bay, laurel cherry, and holly and a number of shrubs 

 like the dahoon, the yupon or cassine and the wax myrtle make a splendid appearance 

 in their garments of dark evergreen foliage. Where the undergrowth is dense, birds are 

 wintering abundantly. What can be more charming than yonder evergreen holly, adorned 

 with its bright red berries and enlivened by numbers of Cardinal Redbirds, hopping 

 about among the dense branches ! If the day is sunny and the air salubrious, they chant 

 their loud rolling song in all directions, inducing other songsters to join them, until the 

 whole woodlands ring with their sweet music. The Carolina Wren sings in the dense 

 evergreen thickets or in the almost impenetrable cane-brakes or bamboos {Arundinaria 

 macrosperma) its liquid notes, and along the edge of the woods hundreds of Field 

 Sparrows warble their cheerful melodies. Without these feathered inhabitants the wood- 

 lands with their beautiful trees and shrubs would seem deserted and desolate. Their 

 songs lend to them an indescribably poetic charm. 



The bird song is to him who can understand and interpret it a poem, an idyl of 

 life and happiness. At home it cheers us, in strange localities it is a touching and home- 

 like greeting, and often it gives consolation in sorrow and sadness. What music has 

 such enlivenitig touch of hope and bliss as the first spring greeting of the Bluebird, 

 the tidings of spring's approach brought by the Song Sparrow and Robin, when ice and 

 snow still cover the ground ! What blissful rapture fills the heart when in the South 

 the flower-perfumed night is made melodious by the enchantingly sweet song of the 

 Mockingbird ! 



No wonder, therefore, that man of true sentiment and dignity has ever been 

 and will always be a friend and protector of the birds of song and beauty. Hunting 



27 



