“We all know those. Even little brother Ebby knows _those_ birds,” said Clary, when Gray Lady proposed to spend the morning in the company of the most homelike and familiar birds of New England. “That is, Ebby knows the Bluebird and Robin, and the Song Sparrow if it is singing; but I do think Sparrows are dreadful hard to tell by sight. If a Song Sparrow doesn’t sing, and turns his back so’s I can’t see the big spot and the little one on his breast, I don’t always know him myself.”
“I hope that we all know these three birds,” said Gray Lady, “but, like old friends, we are even more glad to see them when they come than if they were the most brilliant of strangers. Old friends also may bring news, and as for birds, no one can ever be sure that there is nothing new to learn of them. And as for what we do know, it becomes fresh and new each spring with his return. One thing about this bird is worthy of notice, and that is the wonderful way in which Nature uses colour, both as an ornament and a protection to her children. The majority of the brightly coloured birds do not arrive until there are at least a few leaves to screen them; the Oriole, Tanager, Rose-breast, and Indigo-bird perching on leafless branches. Yet the Bluebird and the Blue Jay, both of brilliant and striking plumage, are with us when the trees are entirely bare, and when evergreens are lacking they have only sky or earth for a background.
“What does this mean? Look out of the window, Sarah, as you are the nearest to it, and perhaps you will discover. Do you see two Bluebirds in the branches of the old Bell pear tree in the garden? No? Look again; they are in the top, where the blue sky shows through the smaller limbs.”
“No, ma’am; that is, I see something moving, but I can’t see any colour. Oh, yes! now I do; it was because the blue of their backs came right against the sky and matched it.”
“Yes,” said Gray Lady, “and the light underparts match the snow and the ruddy breast the fresh earth, so that the Bluebird’s beauty is his protection also; for as our dear old friend John Burroughs says, ‘When Nature made the Bluebird, she wished to gain for him the protection of both earth and sky, so she gave him the colour of one on his back and the other on his breast; yes, and we might also add a touch beneath of the snow that falls from sky to earth.’