34 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
rather sad to realize this short period of bird- 
soil”' within our Northern ornithological dom- 
main. Birds that are left to us to sing long¬ 
er are, among a few others, the jenny wren, 
the wild sparrows, the indigo bird, and the 
dickeissel. 
Bird nesting and raising of the young are in 
full evidence in the month of June, after which 
moulting begins. After this, they letiie 
to cool and sequestered spots and soon 
flock together to prepare for their long 
journey to the South and the tropics. 
The writer saw in Porto Pico, during 
the winter months, the little American 
red start who was simply staying there as a 
visiting traveler. 
One of the results of the white robin’s ap¬ 
pearance was the formation of a large Junioi 
Audubon in which over 318 members were en¬ 
rolled from two of the public schools. The 
children began to wear their buttons and cany 
their cards which made them sworn protectors 
of the birds. 
The girls watched like hawks (without 
wings) the cats and those boys who were in 
the least prone to use the sling shot, and there 
was a marked difference in the general treat¬ 
ment of the cause among all the boys and 
grown people, old and young. 
In cases where kind persuasion could not be 
used by kindly talk, the fine of the state au¬ 
thorities of five dollars for the killing of each 
song bird was threatened. 
In studying the parents of this particular 
white robin, it was noticed that there were 
patches of white feathers of an unusual num¬ 
ber on the rump of one of the birds. Tne fe¬ 
male appeared to have more than the normal 
amount of white colorization. 
Now comes another attractive fact, the next 
season the first pair of robins which appeared 
among those, identical maples were the ones 
who had nested there the year before. They 
could not be mistaken. There was the female 
with tier superabundance of white plumage. 
r I ins proved the return of the songsters to 
their old habitat, which fact is fast becoming 
more and more a fixed certainty among all of 
cur birds. 
A bioken legged robin returned three succes¬ 
sive vears to an old orchard in one of the 
% 
towns of Minnesota. 
I suggest a problem for solution. Can any 
of the readers of ‘‘The Wayside” throw any 
light on the subject? How many years will a 
bird or paii of birds return to their old north- 
. era home? Or, to put the question in a some¬ 
what different form, how long do our native 
songsters live and what are the means by 
which the question can in some way be de¬ 
cided? G. Buffett Pratt. 
Chicago. 
BIRDS. 
“There’s a merry brown thrush 
Sitting up in a tree 
He’s singing to me! 
He’s singing to me! ” 
When December’s storms are raging and the 
cheery “zeep, zeep,” of the nuthatch and merry 
soil”' of the chickadee have changed to plain- 
tive calls for food, no human hand is out¬ 
stretched, for “loving eyes see not, and ears 
hear not,” these our little “brothers of the air.” 
’Twas in May when the six-year-old came 
from the primer and first grade, with the as¬ 
tonishing information that the oven bird built 
its nest on the ground with a little roof over 
its head, and wouldn’t I show him the oven 
bird? It was with considerable embarrassment 
that I confessed I had not the pleasure of an 
acquaintance with' the oven bird. 
Was then informed that the indigo buntings 
were to be seen in the Estey lot. Wouldn’t I 
show him the indigo buntings? Again, with 
confusion, I had to confess that I was not only 
not on speaking terms with th'e buntings, but 
did not ever remember to have heard of them. 
I resolved at once to make the acquaintance 
of the Bunting and Oven families. 
The first step was to buy a bird book and 
the next, to send out a general invitation to 
the birds by establishing a free lunch counter 
and bath. The sparrows must have carried the 
news as they were the first to arrive, but the 
others came, robins, thrashers, flickers, cat¬ 
birds, grosbeaks, woodpeckers, chipping spar¬ 
rows, vesper sparrows, grackles and orioles. 
In June and July they brought the little ones 
for food and drink. 
Houses were placed on the cloth'es posts, and 
were at once taken possession of by blue birds 
and wrens. 
