I was much amused one summer day in seeing a bluebird feeding her young
one in the shaded street of a large town. She had captured a cicada or
harvest-fly, and after bruising it a while on the ground flew with it
to a tree and placed it in the beak of the young bird. It was a large
morsel, and the mother seemed to have doubts of her chick's ability to
dispose of it, for she stood near and watched its efforts with great
solicitude. The young bird struggled valiantly with the cicada, but made
no head way in swallowing it, when the mother took it from him and flew
to the sidewalk, and proceeded to break and bruise it more thoroughly.
Then she again placed it in his beak, and seemed to say, "There, try it
now," and sympathized so thoroughly with his efforts that she repeated
many of his motions and contortions. But the great fly was unyielding,
and, indeed, seemed ridiculously disproportioned to the beak that held
it. The young bird fluttered and fluttered and screamed, "I'm stuck, I'm
stuck," till the anxious parent again seized the morsel and carried
it to an iron railing, where she came down upon it for the space of a
minute with all the force and momentum her beak could command. Then
she offered it to her young a third time, but with the same result as
before, except that this time the bird dropped it; but she was at the
ground as soon as the cicada was, and taking it in her beak flew
some distance to a high board fence where she sat motionless for some
moments. While pondering the problem how that fly should be broken,
the male bluebird approached her, and said very plainly, and I thought
rather curtly, "Give me that bug," but she quickly resented his
interference and flew farther away, where she sat apparently quite
discouraged when I last saw her.

The bluebird is a home bird, and I am never tired of recurring to him.
His coming or reappearance in the spring marks a new chapter in the
progress of the season; things are never quite the same after one has
heard that note. The past spring the males came about a week in advance
of the females. A fine male lingered about my grounds and orchard all
the time, apparently waiting the arrival of his mate. He called and
warbled every day, as if he felt sure she was within ear-shot, and
could be hurried up. Now he warbled half-angrily or upbraidingly,
then coaxingly, then cheerily and confidently, the next moment in a
plaintive, far-away manner. He would half open his wings, and