f winter and in spring meet again on their old trysting
grounds. It is safe to assert that as a rule birds retain the same
mates throughout the breeding season if misfortune does not befall one
of them. During the fall and winter months, when the impulses
governing domestic duties are dormant, birds pay little or no attention
to their mates.

[Illustration: A mountain Bluebird family. Its home having been
destroyed it is now enjoying temporary quarters furnished by a kindly
hand.]

_A Much-married Bluebird._--One spring a pair of Bluebirds came into
our yard, and to the accompaniment of much cheerful bird conversation,
in the form of whistles, twitters, chirps, and snatches of {49} song,
began hunting eagerly for some place to locate a nest. Out in the
woodshed I found a box, perhaps six inches square and twice as long.
Cutting a small entrance hole on one side, I fastened the box seven or
eight feet from the ground on the side of a young tree. The newcomers
immediately took possession and began carrying dry grasses into their
adopted sanctuary. Several days elapsed and then one morning, while
standing on the back of a garden settee and peeping into the hole, I
discovered that a pale-blue egg had been laid. When the nest contained
four of these little beauties incubation began.

One rainy night while the mother bird was on duty she must have heard
the scratching of claws on the box outside. A moment later two yellow
eyes blazed at the entrance and a long arm reached into the nest. The
next morning on the grass beneath the window we found her wing tips and
many other fragments of her plumage. All that day the distressed mate
flew about the lawn and called continually. He seemed to gather but
little food and {50} the evidence of his suffering was pitiful. In
fact, he stirred our feelings to such a pitch we at length closed the
windows to shut out the sounds of his mournful calls.

Upon looking out next morning, the first note we heard was that of a
Bluebird, but his voice seemed to have lost some of its sorrow.
Walking around the corner of the house, I found him sitting on a limb
near the box. Two feet from him sat another Bluebird--a female. At
eleven o'clock we saw her clinging to the side of the box and looking
inquiringly into the entrance hole. We knew what this meant;
incidentally we knew, too, that being a ladybird she would have no use
for the nest and eggs that had been placed there by another,