CHAPTER V.

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HOW MADAM BIRD COMBS HER HAIR.

Madam Birdis not able to smooth her head-dress with her bill. What does she do about it? Why, she uses her foot, which serves also as her hand.

Birds are either-handed; that is, they can use the left hand or foot as well as the right. Some people think that a parrot is left-handed, because she always takes in her left hand the cracker or sugar which you offer to her. The next time you feed her, stop and see what you are doing. You are standing in front of the bird and offering her the cracker in your right hand. She is facing you, and of course takes the food with her left hand. Everybody gives her things in the same way, and she naturally uses her left hand, because we teach her to do so.

But wild birds are either handed. Watch and see how they comb their hair, first on one side and then on the other, scratching very fast, as if to get all the tangles out, but never crying, "Oh, don't!" when it pulls. We call the fine feathers "hair," because they grow on the bird's head as our hair does on our own.

See how Mrs. Bird lifts her crown and separates the soft feathers, and fixes her frizzes or bangs, if she wears them. After she has combed her hair this way longenough, she smoothes it down in good order with her hair dressing, as you will see later on.

Did you ever notice a bird wash its ears? That is enough to make you smile, but we assure you it does wash its ears and all around its mouth after its meals, and between meals as often as it is necessary.

Watch your tame canary; he is very much like wild birds in habits of neatness. See him stand on one foot and reach the other foot up quickly between the long feathers of his wing and dig away at his ears, just as if his mother had told him to "get ready for school."

We have laughed many a time to see him wash himself, he does it so deftly and cheerfully, as if it were the greatest fun in the world. Then, to get the corners of his mouth clean, he wipes them on his towel. His towel is his perch or any cross-bar in the cage. You may say he is "sharpening his bill," but he is really wiping his face. He has probably washed it in his bath a few minutes before.

Some birds wear their hair done up high on their heads like a "pug,"—the "crest" as we call it, standing out like the twist of the fashion. Others, such as our mountain quail,[3]prefer something like a Chinaman's queue or the revolutionary braids. Others still comb their hair down plain and neat like little Quakers.

[3]In Southern California,Oreortyx pictus plumiferus.

But whichever way a bird dresses its head, it is always becoming and pretty. We have watched birds dressing themselves, sitting or standing on the edge ofthe tub under the hydrant, or at the brook or puddle, and we have wondered if they were not looking at themselves in the water, flirting and twisting and turning about just like real people at a looking-glass.

Most birds wear short dresses or skirts in true walking style, while a few prefer the trail. But one thing we have noticed: they never allow the trail to drag in the dust or mud, not even the road-runner, whose train is sometimes twelve inches long.

Mountain Quail.

A mocking-bird or a robin will let her train just touch the ground when she stretches up to look about her; but when she begins to walk again she lifts it. So you never see the tip of the longest tail one bit draggled, unless the bird is wounded or sick.

If you watch closely, you will learn to tell a male bird from a female bird by its dress. To be sure, hiscoat skirts are cut so much like the dress of his mate that we sometimes have to imagine a good deal to see any difference.

But, as a rule, you can tell the male or gentleman bird because he dresses so much more gayly than his mate, although we do not think he spends quite so much time as she in fixing and mending his clothes and in bathing. The lady bird works harder than her mate in going to market to get lumber and nails for her house or cradle, and so she soils her clothes more. Then she sits longer in the nest and works harder in many ways, never once thinking about putting on an apron.

You must not think too hard of the gentleman birds for letting their mates do the most of the home work, for you remember that it is the male who must always be ready for his place in the orchestra at a moment's notice. He is obliged to make most of the music, and if he should neglect his duty he would probably lose his place and be put out of the choir.

A singer bird has no notes spread out before him, but must go over and over his part, until he knows it by heart with no one to prompt him.

You need not be surprised because we said a bird must get lumber and nails for her house or cradle. If she did not have lumber and nails, she could not do her work. Of course you never hear her pounding with a hammer, still she uses what may be called nails, as you shall see by and by.

I should not have to change my dressWere I a bird in yonder tree,And say, "Excuse me, if you please,"When callers come to visit me.But I would fly upon a bough.And say, "My dear, come right up here."And we would sit and swing and chatBeneath the sky so blue and clear.

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WHAT BIRDS CARRY IN THEIR POCKETS.

Somebirds wear on their heads plumes, or bright and showy hats. These they sometimes lift in true bird style. There is the ruby-crowned kinglet[4]which one sees in the garden trees. When this little king lifts his hat, he shows what looks like a ruby crown or jewel on top of his head.

[4]Regulus calendula.

Other birds wear cocked hats, or tall silk hats with waving plumes. You can imagine almost anything you like in the dress of a bird, from his hat to his shoes. When a bird who wears a hat is surprised by another bird, or is angry, or when he wants to "show off" to his mate while paying his respects to her, he lifts the feathers on the top of his head; and this is what we call "lifting his hat."

Many of our merry little bird friends, both male andfemale, wear bonnets or hoods, which we think are tied closely under the chin. Others, like the woodpeckers, wear collars of lace. This lace is made of loose, filmy feathers, as different from the feathers of the breast or back as embroidery is different from closely woven cloth.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

When a warm day comes, you will see the birds lift their wings and hold their feathers close, and pant with their bills open. How tired they look, and the song or twitter which you hear is a weary one, as if they were saying, "The oldest inhabitant never saw so warm a day." In a cold snap the dress fluffs out, and the bird looks much larger than he did on the warmday. It seems as if he were saying, "See me make my wraps as big and thick as I can."

Many of the birds that sit up and fly about all the long cold night are more warmly clothed than most day birds, who tuck themselves into bed as soon as the sun sets. Examine the owls and see how warmly they dress. Many of them wear trousers of feathers, reaching to the knees or coming low down to the ankles. Often their feet are covered with feathers down to their sharp claws. Their necks, too, are all wrapped up with feathers, like comforters or woollen scarfs, so that only the bill may be seen.

Short-eared Owl.

It gets pretty cold in the middle of the night, andMr. Owl knows how to wrap himself up. Besides, with these thick, soft feathers he can fly after his prey without making any noise.

A bird's shoes and stockings are strong and never seem to wear out. If they become worn, they are mended so quickly you never know the difference. The foot and leg are covered with scales, like the scales on a lizard.

Birds and lizards are much alike; in fact, they are a sort of cousin or distant relative, so that they dress alike in the matter of shoes and stockings. Only the lizard wears scales all over, while a bird wears them only for shoes and stockings. The bird has found out that feathers are better for flying in the air, while the lizard, crawling as he always does, is perfectly happy with only scales for clothes.

All birds, big and little, wear warm, fleecy underclothes, better and softer than flannel. You can see bits of these underclothes at the bottoms of the knee trousers or dresses, or, if you happen to be holding a bird in your hand, you can part the outer clothes and see and feel the delicate down. Sometimes, when a bird ruffles his outer garments in washing himself, the soft warm underclothes are in plain sight.

Birds never use complexion powders; that, no doubt, would seem very vulgar to them. But they do use hair oil every day. They carry this mixture about with them in their pockets. By pockets we mean little pouches or sacks which always lie on the back, near thetail. Birds would not be quite dressed without their pockets, and they know where to find them without any trouble. We suppose this is because birds' pockets have always been in the same place.

If it looks like rain, the "hair oil," as we call it, is used more freely. Suppose the lady bird wishes to oil the back of her head and around her face. Of course she is not able to take up the bottle and pour the oil into her hand; but she squeezes a little out with her beak, as you would press a rubber bulb. Then she lays the oil on her back just above her wings.

To get the oil all about where she wishes to put it, she rubs her head against it, twisting and turning her neck, until all the feathers of her head are straight and shining.

When a shower comes, the water falls or slides down the bird's back and shoulders on the oil, never finding its wet way beneath to the underclothing. Birds are like those people who live in the cold and wet north. The Eskimo are said to rub their whole bodies with seal or fish oil to keep themselves from being wet.

Bird babies seldom have any clothing to begin life with. A few, such as the walkers and waders and most of the swimmers, like quail and sandpipers and ducks, are covered with thick down when they come out of their shell.

Many of the bird babies in our yard have hardly a trace of the finest down, while others have a little of it in patches, like tiny shirts or bibs. Birds which haveno clothes are hatched in the warmest nests, and are close to the mother's breast almost all the time, until their clothes have time to grow. They do not have oil in their pockets until they have feathers to put it on.

A baby bird has such a wide mouth that he looks very odd. But then, you see, his mouth is wide on purpose, so that the parent birds can drop the food in quickly. If the parents had to hunt around to find six or eight little mouths, many a nice bug or worm would get away and the babies go hungry.

Look into a nest and see that four or five open bills are as much of the young birds as you can catch sight of above the edge of the nest. Each is trying to openhis mouth a little wider than his brothers and sisters so that it can get the first mouthful. We have often wondered how the mother knows which bird to feed when she comes to the nest. We spent two or three days once to be quite sure that she fed all alike. She fed them in turn, even though she returned many times, not once giving the last one another bite until she had been all around. We do not know whether she counts them or calls them by name, but she makes no mistake in feeding them.

We saw a humming-bird mother one day stand on the head of one little baby birdling while she fed the other. Not all of her weight was on the bird, of course, but quite enough to make him keep out of her way while she fed his brother.

A baby bird gains nothing by teasing and coaxing; it must wait for its turn to come, no matter how hungry it happens to be. It is probably more greedy than hungry when it wants to get more than its share.

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CHILD BIRDS.

Duringchildhood, that is, during the first season, most birds look quite different from their parents. Many of them do not get the color or texture of grown-up birds for a year or more.

You can soon learn to tell which are the children among the birds by what they wear and by the way they talk. Their voices are childish and coaxing. They sometimes cry, and call in piping tones even after they have learned to fly to the highest tree, or to soar far into the blue sky, just to see how high they can go.

We have sometimes thought that bird children play at games of hide-and-seek among the bushes, and that they try to see which one of them can jump the farthest. Watch them for yourselves, and you will see such fun as will make you laugh.

Birds are like other children, they get hungry very often at their play. We have seen whole broods of young orioles following the old birds about and teasing for food long after the next nest of birdlings was hatched. These teasing children were as large as their parents, and might better have been feeding their younger brothers and sisters.

Parent birds often drive their young away from them, and eat the food which they have caught themselves right before the children, as if to say, "Go, find some for yourselves."

In Southern California, where we live, in midsummer the yard seems full of young linnets[5]coaxing from day-light till dark. All the limbs of the trees are alive with them. They stand in rows, with their mouths wide open, and we wonder how the old birds can take care of so many children at once. We see the youngbirds teasing one another sometimes, as if they were saying, "Tommy dear," or, "Susy dear, please divide your lunch."

[5]House finch,Carpodacus mexicanus frontalis.

Linnet.

So we see that birds have a childhood as well as a babyhood, but it is very short, for they are soon taught to work hard and to be self-supporting.

A lazy young bird never gets on in the world. Parent birds are very kind but firm. It sounds as ifthey were sometimes scolding good-naturedly. We imagine them saying to their children, "We have shown you the seeds and the berries, now go to work. If you want food, help yourselves; for we have been to market for you long enough. Dress yourselves, too. See how you each have a bottle of oil. Now be neat and careful of your clothes, for it will be a long while before you get any more."

We have seen young birds make very awkward attempts at dressing themselves. Sitting in a tree, they try to imitate the old birds, fluttering and turning about, and rubbing their small heads on their shoulders, and falling off from the branch in their excitement.

It is this daily care of their clothes that makes birds so beautiful. It seems to us that they know very well that they will not be able to get a new suit very often, and that they must take good care of those clothes they have. We have never seen child birds smear their food over their faces and clothes, not even when they were eating bread and butter and stewed blackberries. It may seem funny to you that birds should eat bread and butter and stewed blackberries, as if they were cooks and housekeepers. But they really do, as you shall see by and by.

Little birds pay attention to what is said to them. They learn their lessons well, and they "say their pieces" like any child, and, like children, they seem to make mistakes at first. They do not take their dinner-pails and go long distances to school. Theylearn at home with their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters.

The school-house is anywhere, in the yard or the woods or fields. If you take the trouble to listen and keep very quiet in midsummer, you will be able to see and hear these bird schools going on at a rate that will make you smile and think that birds are real people.

You can see the children in the nests or on the branches of trees, or even on the ground, learning musical notes, and the letters of their alphabet, and running the bird scale, just like any class in school. Every now and then you will see them skip out for a drink of water at the pump or brook. They may not hurry back at once, but stop to look at themselves in the water and to frolic about in the ferns and grass.

Birds have a very happy childhood. It will pay any child or grown person to spend a whole summer or autumn in studying them and their ways. This would be much better than wishing one could go somewhere, when one hasn't the money to go with, or being unhappy because one hasn't fine clothes and houses.

Young birds do not seem to be very much afraid of us. They only look a little surprised and try to hop a bit faster if we go too near them.

See how queer the tops of their heads look, with the baby down still sticking out in little tufts through the thicker feathers. Their lips, too, along the edges of the bill!—how yellow they are, as though they had just been eating new spring butter.

Those soft yellow lips will soon turn dark and hard from use, just as a real baby's feet lose their pink softness and grow callous when the child goes barefoot a while.

Altogether, bird children are very interesting, and one who loves them never gets tired of watching them. There is something new and charming to learn every day. We wonder that there are any unhappy or cross or sulky people in the world, when they may have the birds to teach them better.

There is many a kind little boy who picks up a child bird and puts it in a high place out of reach of cats and naughty boys. These may be sure that the mother bird will find her young one, and you may hear her thanking you, if you listen. Besides, every time a boy is good to a child bird he has made his own childhood richer and happier.

O happy little bird-child, full of life and glee,Won't you stay this summer in the yard with me?You shall have some berries when the berries grow;Berries don't hurt children—mother told me so.

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HOW BABY BIRDS ARE FED.

Someof the baby birds are nurslings, like the lambs and colts. They are dependent upon what the parent birds first eat and digest. Others eat just what theold birds do from the start. Only you will notice that the mother bird pounds and bruises the food she gives to her young, tapping it on the edge of the nest or on a twig or the ground until it is soft enough for the birds to swallow without danger of scratching their tender throats.

Linnets, pigeons, humming-birds, and some of the finches, are nurslings. The food is prepared for them by the parent birds, and the young are fed by the old bird's bill. We imagine that the bill of the parent bird is the nursing-bottle. The old birds first eat food themselves, and then work it over in their crops into a sort of paste or milky fluid. Then, when the meal is all ready, they alight on the edge of the nest and feed the babies. We have seen humming-bird mothers feed the babies while poised on their wings above the nest.

Perhaps there are four or five finches all clamoring for breakfast, crying, and stretching their little necks up as high as possible. The old bird on the edge of the nest looks at the open mouths of all her babies, and begins at the one she thinks is the hungriest. She puts the nursing-bottle, which is her bill, far down the throat of the nursling, clinging fast to the nest or twig with her toes, and moving her bill up and down, her own throat throbbing all the while.

We once saw a humming-bird feed one of her young ones and then fly away. During her absence the little birds changed places in the nest, turning completely around. When the mother came back to finish givingthem their breakfast, she made no mistake, but fed the hungry one, though both had their bills wide open.

When the mother has fed one child as much as she thinks is its share, she turns to the next open mouth. In this way she nurses the whole cradleful, who seem never to be satisfied.

Humming-Bird feeding her Young.

We have seen no "runts" or dwarf birds in a family, as are sometimes seen in a nest of pigs or puppies. The parent birds seem to understand, and to see that each baby has its proper share and not a crumb more. They do not love one better than another.

Some birds keep on nursing their young long after we think the lazy children are large enough to be looking out for themselves. It would be no betterthan they deserve if they had to go hungry sometimes. We think they often must get very hungry before they have learned to work for their board. This is all right, for if the parents kept on supporting them, what useless creatures they would be!

We shall tell you after a while about our bird's restaurant. We have seen the young birds follow their mother to the table at this restaurant and stand coaxing for the crumbs. At first the mocking-bird mother picks up the food and puts it in the young bird's mouth, and then she flies away. She has given it only a little, just to show the little bird where the food is and how to pick it up himself. There he will stand, looking at the cookie crumbs and teasing as loud as he can, but the mother will not come back. She sits in a tree near by watching to see how her bird child learns his first lesson at helping himself.

After a while, the young bird gets very hungry and begins pecking for the crumbs. At first he makes very awkward attempts at grabbing a crumb, but he succeeds at last and swallows the rest of his breakfast. We laugh, sitting in the shade watching him, and we think his mother is laughing too, in the tree above.

Those birds that do not nurse their young with liquid food are supposed to give them water as well as food, by bringing it to them in their beaks, though we have not seen them do so. Probably the babies are fed on soft worms and fruits until they have cut their first teeth.

How can the little things eat hard seeds and bones before they have any teeth? Does it make you smile and wonder when we speak of baby birds cutting their teeth? Don't you suppose birds have teeth? Of course they have.

Every bird has a set of false teeth working out of sight. Birds never have the toothache, and they do not have to be brave and hold still while somebody pulls their teeth out. They can have a new set of teeth as often as they need them, without paying a good price to the dentist.

Look along the path and you will see these teeth, lying as thick as hail in some places. Little sharp stones, coarse gravel, and fine sand,—these are the bird's teeth. When a bird picks them up, he swallows them, and they go, without any trouble, right where they belong, down to a kind of pouch or pocket called the gizzard. This pocket is lined with very tough muscles. These muscles or rings look something like a fluting-iron or washboard, and as they move they set the teeth or little stones to rolling against the food in such a way that it is soon ground into bits, or rather into paste.

It takes a baby bird a long time to learn to pick up anything with its bill. It will peck and peck at the food without being able to touch it, as we have seen many birds do when brought up in a cage, and as the little mocking-birds do at the garden table.

Once we had some pet orioles, and before we noticedwhat he was doing, one of them made his bill look like a hawk's bill, all curved or crooked. He had pecked so hard at the food on the board floor of his cage that the hard taps had bent his soft bill out of shape, and it remained so after the bird had grown up. We have seen a blue jay and a thrush and a towhee, each with his beak out of shape, twisted to one side or broken. This must have been done when they were little. Birds, like other people, must have the right start if they are to be beautiful when they are older.

Blue Jay.

Though young birds can see the food before them, they have to try a long while before they know exactly how to take hold of it. They make us think of realbabies trying to pick up some toy with their fat little hands. A bird's bill at first is very soft, like a baby's bones. If you feel of it, you will see that to the touch it is like a piece of rubber.

The difficulty is really more with the bird's eyes than with his bill, for it seems that, although he sees the food which he wants to eat, he cannot measure the distance correctly until he has learned how to see straight and aim right.

"Let me look in your mouth, little bird;How many white teeth have you?No teeth? then how do you chew your food?Be honest and tell me true.""My teeth are all out of sight, little boy,They are hard and white and firm;—Out of sight, but they grind the seeds like a mill,And the bug, and the nice fat worm."

"Let me look in your mouth, little bird;How many white teeth have you?No teeth? then how do you chew your food?Be honest and tell me true."

"My teeth are all out of sight, little boy,They are hard and white and firm;—Out of sight, but they grind the seeds like a mill,And the bug, and the nice fat worm."

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AT MEAL-TIME.

Ifwe had twenty birds in a cage and had to hunt for all the food they could eat, the same as they would do if they were free, we should have a busy time of it, and very likely the birds would starve.

Birds have sharp eyes. Watch the finches and see how they hop from twig to twig, pecking at tiny thingswhich we cannot even see. These birds seem to be near-sighted, finding their dinner right under their eyes. We could not possibly see anything so near our faces.

Then there are some of the birds who seem far-sighted, seeing food at a longer distance than we could, and darting for it as quick as a flash.

It is a fact that most birds are both near-sighted and far-sighted. Their eyes are both telescopes and microscopes. Watch Madam Mocker or Mrs. Robin. She will see a grasshopper on the other side of the lawn, or a daddy-long-legs taking a sun-bath at the far end of the picket fence. The grasshopper and the daddy haven't time to get up and be off before they are surprised by Madam Bird's sharp bill.

Birds, like other people, must work if they will eat, and so they go in search of the cupboard or the cellar, and it is sometimes hard work to find them. The cupboard is anywhere in a dry place, and the door is never locked. The cellar is almost anywhere, too, where it is cool and damp, under the grass and chips and down in cracks between logs and boards. The food in the cellar is very unlike the food in the cupboard.

There are some insects that never see the light and cannot bear the sunshine. They are usually soft, tender things, and live where it is moist and cool. We call these the food in the bird's cellar. There are other insects that love the dry air, where it is warm, the bark of trees and the hot sand, and these we call the food in the bird's cupboard.

Birds spend nearly all their time in hunting for something to eat. Life seems to be one long picnic for them. They digest rapidly. Their food is found and picked up in very small quantities, excepting the food of the gourmands like the buzzards. These birds are certainly not very tidy or nice about their meals. They eat as much as they possibly can, and then sit about on the low fences, or even on the ground, too full and heavy to fly away.

Birds have sharp ears and can hear bugs and worms long before they can be seen. The woodpecker listens for the grubs with his ear close to the bark of the trees. But woodpeckers are not always after grubs when you see them running up and down a tree trunk and pecking holes in the bark. They like the inner skin of the bark for food, and the sap-suckers drink the sap of the tree.

Watch the robin or the mocking-bird on the lawn. You have been sprinkling that lawn for two weeks in midsummer, just to make the grass nice and green. Perhaps you did not think that you were making it easy for the birds to get something to eat in a dry time. But you see that your sprinkling or watering has made the turf mellow and soft, so that the worms can crawl up to the surface more easily than if it were dry. And the birds are making the most of your kindness, as you see.

See how that little bird cants his head and listens. We imagine him holding up his hand and saying,"Don't move, please, nor do anything to scare this worm away. I hear it coming up to the top of the ground, and I am very hungry."

Downy Woodpecker.

Once we saw a very funny sight. A mocking-bird in the yard had grown very tame and had nested close by, taking no pains to fly away from us. She soon came to know that we had something for her to eatwhen we called, "Come, Chickie," and she would fly close to us with eager eyes, not at all afraid.

Every night at sundown, which is the bird's supper-time, we went to the summer-house and turned over the empty flower-pots. Under these pots little black bugs were hiding, but more especially the saw-bugs, soft, gray, crawling things. The mocking-bird would follow us as fast as she could, picking up the bugs for her young. When she had a mouth full of the wriggling insects, she would go and feed them to her babies and come back again to the moist places under the pots, until every bug was captured.

Once there were more bugs under one pot than she could possibly carry at one time, and she was in great trouble to know what to do about it. She swallowed as many as she wanted herself, and then she began cramming her mouth full for the babies. The bugs looked so tempting, and there were so many, she did not like to lose any of them, and so she kept on picking them up. After her mouth was as full as it could hold, the bugs kept falling out at the sides of her bill, and she would pick them up again over and over without knowing it, until we scared her away by our laughing.

Some birds, as we have said, such as the owls, take their food whole. Of course, bones, hair, and feathers cannot be digested, so after a time they are thrown up in the shape of little balls, called "castings," and by examining them we can find out exactly what the bird has been eating.

Most of the birds we are acquainted with pick their food very carefully, and eat only that which will digest without trouble. You can see them hold it down with one foot, looking at it closely to be quite sure that it is really good to eat. They often pull it to shreds and swallow it in little bits. If it is a butterfly dinner, the wings are torn off and sent floating to the ground. If it is a grasshopper supper, the tough, wiry legs of the insect are thrown away, and only the rich, luscious breast and fat thighs are eaten.

In California we have the pepper tree, which is all covered with clusters of red berries. Under the thin, red skin is a sweet, soft pulp which covers the seed. The pulp is all there is of the pepper berry which the birds can digest. But this is a very sweet morsel indeed, and tourist birds come a long distance to get it.

Robin redbreasts,[6]come here in winter to eat our pepper berries, and then, of course, they disgorge the hard seeds, which they cannot possibly digest, just as the owls do the bones of their prey.

[6]Merula migratoria propinqua.

We think the mocking-birds have taught the robins to do this, and we have noticed the wax-wings[7]doing the same thing.

[7]Ampelis cedrorum.

When the winter tourist birds make a raid on our yards, we can hear the tiny pepper seeds fall in a shower on our tin roofs, under the tall trees, and the door-steps will be covered. Sometimes the seeds come down so thick and fast that we can think of nothingbut a hail-storm. The pepper berries ripen in midwinter, and it is worth one's while to see a flock of robins and wax-wings come into our yard. In a few days almost every pepper tree has been robbed, and nothing is left us but the brown seeds.

These, and other birds from the north who come to pay us a visit in winter, are tamer than they are at home. They seem to think that we are on our honor to be polite to strangers, and so we are.

If you watch closely, wherever you live, at some time in the year you will see visiting birds in your yard and you ought to be polite to them.

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SEED-EATERS AND MEAT-EATERS.

Ifwe wish to keep one of the wild birds in a cage, we usually select one of the seed-eaters. These birds are gentle and are readily tamed. Our tame canaries are descended from the wild seed-eaters.

Seed-eating birds make us think of some nations of men who live on rice or fruit. Those who have been among these people tell us that they are gentle and kind and ready to learn.

Many birds are very fond of spiders. It is said that spiders are a kind of "bird medicine," and that some birds could not live without them. This seems ratherhard for the spiders, but sometimes they pay the birds back. There is said to be a spider in a certain part of the world which is so large and strong that it eats birds. It lies in wait and catches small, weak birds as if they were so many flies. This seems very cruel, because we love the birds so much. But we might learn to love the spiders just as well, if we should get better acquainted with them.

Chimney Swift.

When you are outdoors just after sundown, you will sometimes see a great many swifts and swallows in the air, darting around in great circles. They do not seem to be going anywhere or doing anything in particular. But you will find that they really have something very important on hand. They are eating their late suppers.

There are tiny insects high up where the birds are flying, whole swarms of them, and these make a delicious supper for the hungry birds.

Arkansas Goldfinch.

The finches, or wild canaries,[8]as we call them in Southern California, are among our commonest birds. These birds shell plant-seeds before swallowing them, as one can see by watching flocks of them in the sunflowerpatches. We have thrown hard crumbs out to them in the yard, and they have been seen to crack these crumbs all to pieces, thinking of course that there must be a shell.

[8]Spinus psaltriaandSpinus tristis.

The birds do not crack or break their teeth or beaks, be the seeds ever so hard, as a child would be very likely to do on a walnut. Every bird carries a nutcracker about with him wherever he goes. If a finch gets hold of a very tough, hard seed, he slips it far back in the beak, where the angle of the jaw gives better strength or force. He can then break it easily, as you would crack the hardest nut by placing it close to the hinge of the nutcracker.

If the seed is tender or brittle, the bird pushes it to the point of his beak with his tongue and presses on it. Out drops the seed-cover to the ground, leaving the meat in the bird's bill.

Our tame canary has an original way of preparing his food. We give him cookie or bread, and he breaks off bits and carries them to his water dish, into which he drops them. After they have soaked a little while, he goes back and picks them out and eats them. Now his teeth are not at all poor, for he cracks his canary seeds without any trouble. We think he likes a little mush for a change, and so he makes it for himself.

One sometimes wonders why our garden birds do not store away food when it is plentiful, as squirrels do. There are ever so many nice hiding-places all about. Some wild birds do hide their food, thus "laying upsomething for a rainy day," which we think is about the right thing for birds and other people to do.

One reason why our civilized birds do not store their food is that a supply of one kind or another is almost always to be found. Besides, many of our birds travel about so much, always going where food is, that there is no need of storing it.

The seed-eaters do not travel much, as seeds may always be found, in winter as well as in summer. Birds that depend for food upon insect life must go in search of it as the seasons change.

One sometimes thinks the birds do little else but think about meal-time. A singer will sometimes "make believe" forget, while he sits on his swaying branch, pouring out his throat full of melody, as if he did not care if he never tasted food again. But suddenly, without a hint, there is a stop in the music that doesn't belong just there, and the bird darts to the ground. He swallows a worm or a blue-jacketed fly, and then back he goes to his perch and his song, as if he had not been interrupted at all.

We do not think it is the worst fate in the world to be eaten by a bird and made into song and chirp and flutter. We owe a good deal to the insects, which the birds we love so much could not do without. We ought to think of this and not step on a bug or worm in the path.

Some heartless people think it is a great treat to have a pot-pie made of as many little birds as they canget by paying for them or shooting them,—birds so small that it takes a whole one to make a good mouthful.

We do not think it wrong to have a chicken dinner, or even a quail or pigeon, if we are sick; because it takes only a bird or two to make enough. But we do think it is wrong to take many happy lives just to give one person a dinner, when he could make as good a meal on beefsteak as on a dozen little birds.

Birds have so many enemies that they hardly ever die of old age. We ought to think of this, and do what we can to prolong their lives. There is hardly a spot on earth so desolate that birds are not found there.

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