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 were the day that they flew away to the South. As soon as they arrived they would always look for food in the places where we had left it the year before, and also for material with which to patch up last year's nest. So they were our old friends without a doubt.

The year in question they had come as usual and repaired the nest. There had seemed to be some doubt in their minds as to whether to use the old home again. They had prospected about for a while house-hunting, but had finally come back to the old home.

The nest had been rebuilt as usual, the eggs laid and the fledglings hatched, when the tragedy occurred. It happened when the fledglings were two or three weeks old. They were fully feathered out and would have been able to fly in another week. As some of my readers doubtless know a small bluebird is not blue at all, but black as a young crow. It is not until some months later that the young birds put on the markings of their elders.

One afternoon late in May a violent thunder and wind storm came up. The rains fell in