It is because the Bluebird is gentle, useful, brave, and faithful under adversity, while he and the Robin are the first two birds that children know by name.

We must live in a very cold, windswept part of the country not to have some of these birds with us from March until Thanksgiving day, and then, when a week has passed and we have not seen a single one, we say winter has come in earnest.

When weeks go by and our eyes grow tired of the glare of the snow, or our hearts discouraged at the sight of bare lifeless trees and stretches of brown meadow--suddenly, some morning, we hear a few liquid notes from an old tree in a sunny spot.

All eagerness, we go out to see if our ears have deceived us.

No, it is a Bluebird! He is peeping into an old Woodpecker's hole and acting as if he had serious thoughts of going to housekeeping there, and did not intend waiting to move in until May-day either.