94 
The Bluebird 
of it, think of it,” and the low two-syllabled answer of the female, are 
heard in every orchard. 
He takes kindly to settling in a bird-box, or a hole in a fence-post, 
telegraph-pole, or outbuilding; but a tree-hole must have been his first 
home, and he has a strong feeling in its favor. The building of the nest 
is not a difficult operation — merely the gathering of 
The a ^™® in a few wisps of straw, with some chance feathers for 
lining. 
The labor of preparing the home seems to be shared by both parents, 
as are the duties of hatching and feeding the young. The number of 
eggs varies, six being the maximum, and they are usually pale blue ; now 
and then, however, a nest is found containing pure white eggs. Two 
broods are usually raised each year, and three are said to be not uncom- 
mon ; for Bluebirds are active during a long season, and, though the first 
nest is made before the middle of April, one year a brood left the box 
over my rose-arbor on September 12. 
The young Bluebirds are spotted thickly on throat and back, after 
the manner of the young of their cousin, the Robin ; but in this case the 
feathers of the back are spotted, the breast-feathers having dusky edges, 
giving a speckled effect. 
As parents, the Bluebirds are tireless, both in supplying the young 
" with insect-food and in attending to the sanitation of the nest, the wast- 
age being taken away and dropped at a distance. This is done at almost 
incredibly short intervals, displaying the wonderful 
Nestlings rapidity of digestion, and the immense amount of 
labor required to supply with grist the mill inside 
every little speckled throat. 
The food of the nestlings consists of insects, among them many, such 
as canker-worms, which men are very glad to get rid of. The fully 
grown birds capture insects also, but vary their diet at all seasons by 
eating berries and small fruits. In autumn and early winter cedar and 
honeysuckle berries, the grapelike clusters of fruit of the poison-ivy, 
that of the bittersweet, and cat-brier berries, are all consumed according 
to their needs. 
When the breeding-season is over, the birds travel sometimes in 
family groups and sometimes in larger flocks, moving southward little 
by little, according to season and food-supply, some journeying as far as 
Mexico, others lingering in the Middle and Southern States. It is very 
unlikely that the Bluebirds that live in our orchards in summer are those 
that we saw in the same place in winter days. Next to the breeding- 
impulse, the instinct for migration seems to be the strongest factor in 
bird-life. When the life of the home is over Nature whispers, “To 
wing, up and on !” So a few of the Bluebirds that have nested in Massa- 
chusetts may be those that linger in New Jersey, while 
Migration those whose breeding-haunts were in Nova Scotia 
drift downward to fill the places of the departed 
Massachusetts birds. But the great mass even of those we call winter 
residents go to the more southern parts of their range every winter. 
