, soft notes and loud, all sung rapidly. It is as gay and bright
as the birds themselves, who flit about playfully as they sing. You will
feel like laughing as merrily as they sing when you hear it some day.

[Illustration: BOBOLINKS.]

THE BLUE BIRD.

"Drifting down the first warm wind
That thrills the earliest days of spring,
The Bluebird seeks our maple groves
And charms them into tasselling."

"He sings, and his is Nature's voice--
A gush of melody sincere
From that great fount of harmony
Which thaws and runs when Spring is here."

"Short is his song, but strangely sweet
To ears aweary of the low
Dull tramps of Winter's sullen feet,
Sandalled in ice and muffled in snow."

* * *

"Think, every morning, when the sun peeps through
The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove,
How jubilant the happy birds renew
Their old, melodious madrigals of love!
And when you think of this, remember, too,
'Tis always morning somewhere, and above
The awakening continents, from shore to shore,
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore.

"Think of your woods and orchards without birds!
Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams
As in an idiot's brain remembered words
Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!
Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds
Make up for the lost music, when your teams
Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more
The feathered gleaners follow to your door?"
FROM "THE BIRDS OF KILLINGSWORTH."

THE CROW.

Caw! Caw! Caw! little boys and girls. Caw! Caw! Caw! Just look at my
coat of feathers. See how black and glossy it is. Do you wonder I am
proud of it?

Perhaps you think I look very solemn and wise, and not at all as if I
cared to play games. I do, though; and one of the games I like best is
hide-and-seek. I play it with the farmer in the spring. He hides, in the
rich, brown earth, golden kernels of corn. Surely he does it because he
knows I like it, for sometimes he puts up a stick all dressed like a man
to show where the corn is hidden. Sometimes I push my bill down into the
earth to find the corn, and at other times I wait until tiny green
leaves begin to show above the ground, and then I get my breakfast
without much trouble. I wonder if the farmer enjoys this game as much
as I do. I he