Identifier: ourownbirdsfamil00bai (find matches)
Title: Our own birds : a familiar natural history of the birds of the United States
Year: 1879 (1870s)
Authors: Baily, William L. (William Lloyd), 1828-1861 Cope, E. D. (Edward Drinker), 1840-1897, ed
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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cheerily about the farm-houseand along the fence-rows, uttering his soft and plain-tive warble with a degree of innocence which nosensitive heart could fail to appreciate. He earlyvisits his old haunts about the wood-shed and out-houses, examining the spot where his last years nestwas built, and with all the ardor and zeal of a new-born afiection he assists his mate in rearranfi:in2: thematerials for their abode, which is often in a boxmade for his use and nailed to a post in the garden jbut not unfrequently he builds in the hole of somedecayed tree or old gate-post. The writer once sawone of these nests which had been built at the bot-tom of a hole in a gate-post, from which it requiredsome ingenuity on the part of the old birds to efiectthe escape of their young, the hole being too deepfor them to get out alone. This difficulty they hadovercome by placing a few small sticks on one sideof the hole in the form of a ladder, by which meansthey could crawl out. The Bluebird sometimes no
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Upper fig.—Hooded Warbler. Lower fig.—Bluebird. (75) THE BLUEBIRD. 77 sooner becomes nicely and to all appearance perma-nently fixed in his snug little box, than he is attackedwith such vigor and determination by the Wren, thathe is compelled to give up the premises which he hadpreoccupied, the latter not considering his more tardjhabits as in any way lessening his right to its occu-pancy, provided he can gain possession. There is something sweetly attractive in the man-ners and habits as well as the song of the Bluebird.Attaching himself closely to the habitations of man,he seems to have become a sort of domesticated pet,whose annual reappearance among us is welcomedwith peculiar pleasure. It is probable that he re-mains with us during a greater portion of the yearthan any other migratory song-bird, unless it be theRobin. Before the cold breath of Winter has passedaway, he comes to us fresh from a land of sunshineand flowers, with a merry little heart beating highbeneath his brig

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