The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives. His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings-- He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest; In the nice ear of Nature, which song is the best? James Russell Lowell. Here is a legend of the summer yellowbird. Let who will believe or disbelieve. They will think of it as often as they see the yellow beauty. Once on a time, when Mother Nature was very lavish of her gold, she forgot to be thrifty and took to spreading it everywhere. She thought she had enough to make the whole world yellow, this being her favorite color; but she soon collected her wits, and reasoned that if everything were yellow there would be nothing left for contrast. So she quit spreading it on, and took to tossing it about in great glee, not caring where it went, so it was in dashes and dots and streaks and lumps, here and there. She threw whole handfuls on the flowers, and butterflies, and little worms, and toadstools, and grass roots, and up in the sky at sunset, and against mountain peaks. The mountains laughed at this sudden whim of Mother Nature, opening their mouths wide, and got whole apronfuls tossed right down their throats. After the ocean bottoms had been peppered with the gold, the flowers came along for their share; the buttercups and dandelions, and goldenrod and sunflowers and jonquils, and hosts of others. Last came the orioles and finches and bobolinks, and many others, each in turn getting a spray or a dash or a grain of the yellow, and went away singing about it. But certain very plain little birds arrived later, when the gold was almost gone, and asked Nature to give them "just a little." Now she had but a handful left. Seeing that there wasn't enough to go around if each had a little, the lady birds said, "Give all you have left to our mates. We do not care for gold. We will follow them about like shadows and look well to the nesting." Then Nature smiled on the unselfish lady birds, and tossed all she had left of the yellow stuff straight at the singers who stood before her, each behind the other in a straight row, thinking she would give it to them in bits. But Nature threw it at them with all her might, laughing. Of course the bird in front got the biggest splash, and then it scattered down the line, until the last few had only a dust or two. But they all began to warble, every one, each so happy that he had a little gold.