“The study of the graduations of plumage of almost any brightly coloured male bird, from its first clothing until the perfectly matured feather of its breeding season, is in itself a science and a subject about which there are many theories and differences of opinion by equally distinguished men.
“The food of the nestling Bluebird is insectivorous, or, rather, to be more exact, I should say animal; but the adult birds vary their diet at all seasons by eating berries and small fruits. In autumn and early winter cedar and honeysuckle berries, the grapelike cluster of fruit of the poison ivy, bittersweet and cat-brier berries, are all consumed according to their needs.
“Professor Beal, of the Department of Agriculture, writes, after a prolonged study, that 76 per cent of the Bluebird’s food ‘consists of insects and their allies, while the other 24 per cent is made up of various vegetable substances, found mostly in stomachs taken in winter. Beetles constitute 28 per cent of the whole food, grasshoppers 22 per cent, caterpillars 11 per cent, and various insects, including quite a number of spiders, comprise the remainder of the insect diet. All these are more or less harmful, except a few predaceous beetles, which amount to 8 per cent, but in view of the large consumption of grasshoppers and caterpillars, we can at least condone this offence, if such it may be called. The destruction of grasshoppers is very noticeable in the months of August and September, when these insects form more than 60 per cent of the diet.’
“It is not easy to tempt Bluebirds to an artificial feeding-place, such as I keep supplied with food for Juncoes, Chickadees, Woodpeckers, Nuthatches, Jays, etc.; yet it has been done, and they have been coaxed to nest close to houses and feed on window-sills like the Chickadees. In winter they will eat dried currants, and make their own selection from mill sweepings if scattered about the trees of their haunts. For, above all things, the Bluebird, though friendly, and seeking the borderland between the wild and the tame, never becomes familiar, and never does he lose the half-remote individuality that is one of his great charms. Though he lives with us, and gives no sign of pride of birth or race, he is not one of us, as the Song Sparrow, Chippy, or even the easily alarmed Robin. The poet’s mantle envelops him as the apple blossoms throw a rosy mist about his doorway, and it is best so.
BLUEBIRDS’ GREETING
Over the mossy walls,
Above the slumbering fields,
Where yet the ground no vintage yields,
Save as the sunlight falls
In dreams of harvest yellow,