Birds and All Nature, Vol. V, No. 4, April 1899

"I was pondering how to bestow greater strength upon the muscles of the flea's legs, so that it may more rapidly escape from its enemies. The balance between attack and flight is deranged; it must be readjusted."

"What!" I answered, "is that thy only meditation? Are not we, mankind, thy best-loved and most precious children?"

The woman slightly bent her brows and replied: "All living creatures are my children; I cherish all equally, and annihilate all without distinction."

"But Virtue, Reason, Justice!" I faltered.

"Those are human words," replied the brazen voice. "I know neither good nor evil. Reason to me is no law. And what is justice? I gave thee life; I take it from thee and give it unto others; worms and men are all the same to me… And thou must maintain thyself meanwhile, and leave me in peace."

I would have replied, but the earth quaked and trembled, and I awoke.

I was returning from hunting, and walking along an avenue of the garden, my dog running in front of me.

Suddenly he took shorter steps, and began to steal along as though tracking game.

I looked along the avenue, and saw a young sparrow, with yellow about its beak and down on its head. It had fallen out of the nest (the wind was violently shaking the birch trees in the avenue) and sat unable to move, helplessly flapping its half-grown wings.

My dog was slowly approaching it, when, suddenly darting from a tree close by, an old dark-throated sparrow fell like a stone right before his nose, and all ruffled up, terrified, with despairing and pitiful chirps, it flung itself twice towards the open jaws of shining teeth. It sprang to save; it cast itself before its nestling, but all its tiny body was shaking with terror; its note was harsh and strange. Swooning with fear, it offered itself up!

What a huge monster must the dog have seemed to it! And yet it could not stay on its high branch out of danger… A force stronger than its will flung it down.

My Tresor stood still, drew back… Clearly he, too, recognized this force.

I hastened to call off the disconcerted dog, and went away full of reverence.

Yes; do not laugh. I felt reverence for that tiny heroic bird for its impulse of love.

Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.

THE BLUEBIRD

Soft warbling note
From azure throat,
Float on the gentle air of spring;
To my quick ear
It doth appear
The sweetest of the birds that sing.

    – C. C. M.
A bit of heaven itself. —Spofford.

The bluebird carries the sky on his back. —Thoreau.

Winged lute that we call a bluebird. —Rexford.

The bluebird is the color-bearer of the spring brigade. —Wright.

A wise bluebird
Puts in his little heavenly word.

    – Lanier.
The bluebird, shifting his light load of song
From post to post along the cheerless fence.

    – Lowell.
It is his gentle, high-bred manner and not his azure coat which makes the bluebird. —Torrey.

How can we fail to regard its azure except as a fragment from the blue of the summer noonday arch? —Silloway.

The bluebird always bears the national colors – red, white, and blue – and in its habits is a model of civilized bird-life. —Dr. Cooper.

At the first flash of vernal sun among the bare boughs of his old home he hies northward to greet it with his song, and seems, unlike the oriole, to help nature make the spring. —Baskett.

As he sits on a branch lifting his wings there is an elusive charm about his sad, quivering tru-al-ly, tru-al-ly. Ignoring our presence, he seems preoccupied with unfathomable thoughts of field and sky. —Merriam.

And yonder bluebird, with the earth tinge on his breast and the sky tinge on his back, did he come down out of heaven on that bright March morning when he told us so softly and plaintively that if we pleased, spring had come? —Burroughs.

He is "true blue," which is as rare a color among birds as it is among flowers. He is the banner-bearer of bird-land also, and loyally floats the tricolor from our trees and telegraph wires; for, besides being blue, is he not also red and white? —Coues.

THE FIRST BLUEBIRD

Jest rain and snow! and rain again!
And dribble! drip! and blow!
Then snow! and thaw! and slush! and then
Some more rain and snow!

This morning I was 'most afeared
To wake up – when, I jing!
I seen the sun shine out and heerd
The first bluebird of spring!

Mother she'd raised the winder some;
And in acrost the orchard come,
Soft as an angel's wing,
A breezy, treesy, beesy hum,
Too sweet fer anything!

The winter's shroud was rent apart —
The sun burst forth in glee —
And when that bluebird sung, my heart
Hopped out o' bed with me!

    – Riley.

THE KIT FOX

C. C. M

ONE of the smallest of the foxes is the kit fox (Vulpes velox), sometimes called the swift fox and also the burrowing fox, getting the latter name for the ability and rapidity with which it digs the holes in the ground in which it lives. It is an inhabitant of the northwestern states and of the western Canadian provinces, covering the region from southeastern Nebraska northwest to British Columbia. Its length is about twenty inches, exclusive of the tail, which is about twelve inches long. The overhair is fine, the back is a pure gray, the sides yellow, and the under parts white. The ears are small and covered with hair and the soles are also hairy. The kit fox is much smaller in size than either the gray or red fox, but has proportionately longer limbs than either of them.