the migration ends. Some Owls and Hawks lay in March, and
the Bluebird, White-breasted Nuthatch and Robin have eggs by April 20,
while most of our birds go to housekeeping during the latter half of
May. Nevertheless, it is in June that their domestic life is at its
height; and to the student of birds' habits this is by far the most
interesting month in the year.

[Illustration: TREE SWALLOWS . . . RESTING IN ROWS ON WAYSIDE WIRES]

Birds that raise two or even three broods will still be occupied with
household affairs in July, but one-brooded birds, having launched their
families, will seek retirement to undergo the trying ordeal of molt,
whereby they will get a complete new costume. Often this will be quite
unlike the one in which they arrived from the South--as the student will
discover, sometimes to his confusion! In August, the Month of Molt, the
seclusion sought by many of our summer birds induces the belief that
they have left us, but toward the latter part of the month they
reappear. The first week in August virtually marks the end of the song
season. The Wood Pewee and Red-eyed Vireo remain in voice throughout the
month, but the great chorus which has made May, June and most of July
vocal, we shall not hear before another spring--so short is the time
when we are blessed by the songs of birds.

Meanwhile the feathered army has begun its retreat to winter quarters.
As early as July 15, Tree Swallows will arrive and by the end of the
month will be seen resting in rows on wayside telegraph wires, or en
route to their roosts in the marshes. In the now heavily leaved forests
the returning Warblers and Flycatchers will not be so easily observed as
they were in May, but in September they become too abundant to be
overlooked. The southward movement grows in strength until late
September, when the greater part of the insect-eating birds have left
us, and it is terminated by the frosts, and consequent falling leaves,
of October.

But just as in the spring some of the northbound migrants drop from the
ranks to spend the summer with us, so in the fall some of the southbound
travelers will remain with us for the winter. The Junco, which we are
wont to think of as only a winter bird, arrives the latter part of
September to remain until April, and with him come the Golden-crowned
Kinglet, Brown Creeper and Winter Wren--all to stay until spring.
October will bring the Horned Lark, Pine Finch, Snow Bunting, Tree
Sparrow and