group of aes, as the Vishast form of feathered life, 
because of the fitness and fineness of structure. | 
Two kinds of this group are among the handsomest 
birds of America. Nature has been fair in her distribution 
of beautiful gifts, for while the Western or, as Ridgway 
names it, the California Bluebird, has been placed by Mother 
- Nature west of the Cascade Range, she has shown that she 
has no favorites by developing on the eastern side the 
matchless brilliancy of the Mountain Bluebird, which is the 
- number one creation of the bird world. Each of these kinds 
may occasionally be found out of its own territory yet it 
seems to like certain places better than others. 
Pioneers must have felt throats tighten and ates 
swell when they saw these first cousins of the bluebirds 
of the old home, which had journeyed before them to these 
solitudes. Poets have often found these small birds fitting 
themes for their rarest songs; and the sight of a bit of. 
~ heaven’s own color flying out of deep green leaves or return- — 
ing with food to her young is enough to seat a poet’s soul into 
the most prosaic observer. 
‘As there are so few birds that wear a blue uniform, a 
_ beginner will be apt to recognize the small bluebirds at first 
_ sight, while the student from the other side of the Rocky 
Mountains will know most of their habits; as a variety in 
one region changes but little in another i in the way it earns | 
a living in a different locality. | 
People who are able to recognize the song, or even the 
quality of voice, in a hidden songster say that the birds of 
the West are not the perfect musicians of the East. How- 
ever, those who know only the contralto theme of the ‘‘Phe- 
ur’ of the Western Bluebirds, or the plaintive thrush-like 
call notes of the Mountain Bluebirds take delight in them 
and are anxious to coax the owners of these voices to 
remain near when they return from their winter trip in 
February or March; and, in the favored localities where the 
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