Gray Lady and the Birds: Stories of the Bird Year for Home and School

Part 1

GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS [Illustration]

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO

(Upper Figure, Male; Lower Figure, Female)]

Order—Passeres Family—Icteridæ Genus—Icterus Species—Galbula

GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS

STORIES OF THE BIRD YEAR FOR HOME AND SCHOOL

BY MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT

PRESIDENT AUDUBON SOCIETY, STATE OF CONNECTICUT AUTHOR OF “CITIZEN BIRD,” “TOMMY ANNE,” ETC.

TWELVE COLOURED PLATES AND THIRTY-SIX FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN HALF-TONE

New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1914

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1907, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1907. Reprinted March, 1909; April, 1910; April, 1914.

Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

WILLIAM DUTCHER

PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION

OF AUDUBON SOCIETIES

IN RECOGNITION OF HIS UNSELFISH DEVOTION

TO THE CAUSE OF

AMERICAN BIRD PROTECTION

TO THE CHILDREN

Greeting!

Oh, sweet is the whitethroat’s lay, As the banners of dawn unfold! The lovable, quarrelsome wrens all day Peep and prattle and scold: Skulks a blue jay hiding his grain; Blinks an owl with the crows in train— Courtship merry and combat vain The eyes of the wise behold.

* * * * * *

And Nature spreads wide her book, In a temple fair and free,— To all who may listen she cries, “Come, look! Come and learn at my knee. Watch the change of the finch’s vest, Note how the highhole carves his nest,— Come with light foot and loving breast, And bury your ills with me!”

—Dora Read Goodale.

Part 2

BE SURE THAT YOU SEE ARIGHT!

The preservation of the useful and beautiful animal and bird-life of the country depends largely upon creating in the young an interest in the life of the woods and fields.

If the child mind is fed with stories that are false to nature, the children will go to the haunts of the animal only to meet disappointment. The result will be disbelief, and the death of interest. The men who misinterpret nature and replace fact with fiction, undo the work of those who in the love of nature interpret it aright.

—Theodore Roosevelt.

RECOGNITION

The author desires to thank Mr. William Dutcher for permission to reproduce the Drawings of Birds prepared under his supervision for the Educational Leaflets of the National Association of Audubon Societies; Mr. Frank M. Chapman for the quotation of material that has appeared in Bird-Lore, also for photographs from his negatives; the American Museum of Natural History of New York City for photographs of its groups representing Bird-Life at Cobbs Island, Virginia, and Birds of the St. Joaquin Valley; to Dr. T. S. Roberts, Dr. C. F. Hodge, R. H. Beebe, and E. van Alterna, for use of valuable photographs; Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for their courtesy in allowing quotations from the poems of Celia Thaxter, Maurice Thompson, Frank Bolles, Lowell, and others; Charles Scribner’s Sons for like permission to use the poems of G. P. Lathrop and Henry van Dyke.

Also to Dr. Henry van Dyke, Edmund C. Stedman, Edith M. Thomas, Oliver Herford, Dora Reed Goodale, George Parsons Lathrop, Dr. Garrett Newkirk, Faith C. Lee, Ella Gilbert Ives, Florence A. Van Zant, Lynn Tew Sprague, Richard Burton, W. B. Blake, and others for the use of their poems, etc.

TO THE GROWN-UP—LEND A HAND!

The training of the eye to correct seeing is one of the great advantages of bird study to the average child, quite aside from the value of the information gained, for this accurate gauge of the eye will always be a benefit in whatever calling may be followed, adding alike to the pleasure and profit of life.

In every town or country village there is some one who takes more than passing interest in the life outdoors, who has a keener eye and more responsive ear than his neighbour, coupled with a heart that has a bit of Eden still lodged in it, so that it keeps tender and yearning toward the simple, direct affections of life, as expressed in childhood and the lives of the timid wild brotherhood, whether of foot or wing. Are you one of these? If so, do you not realize that from your very make-up you draw more freely from nature’s bounty than do your neighbours, and are you not bound to share your pleasure with them? Not alone because it is pleasure, but that through the knowledge that comes with all real joy, the wild bird or beast may be more fully understood, and therefore protected. All the more is this just and right, because we ourselves in our advancement are the main cause of their need of this protection, for as man increases, possesses, builds, and overflows the earth, so do these “kindred of the wild” dwindle and silently disappear.

The lesser beasts keep more aloof than do the birds. These still gather freely in our gardens, fields, and woods if we permit, and if we offer food and shelter, many quickly become responsive.

Will not you who enjoy this friendship share it with others to whom it is perhaps entirely unknown and unguessed, and to whom even the names of birds, beyond a familiar few such as Hawk, Owl, Robin, and Sparrow, are an unknown language?

The bird lectures are many, but there are those who cannot reach them. The bird protective societies are tireless, but the ground must be prepared for the message they send forth, and there is no better way for doing this than by the influence of a personality working quietly and unconsciously that infects all with whom it comes in contact with its wholesome enthusiasm.

If you are a parent or teacher, well and good; your field is ready at hand. If not, you may still become the equivalent of both in your community even though you lack some of Gray Lady’s attributes and resources.

If you have the right faculty and books at hand, you do not need my aid; but if the work of holding youth is as yet an untried experiment, tuck this little volume into the corner of your school desk, the magazine rack, or your work-basket at home, for rainy days or the between times when lack of occupation breeds mischief.

Much that is told in the following pages was thought out, in another form, especially for the use of teachers of the rural schools of Connecticut, but it is applicable to the needs of children in any of the eastern states, and whether the knowledge passes from the school to the home or the home to the school, the process is the same. The walk between the rural school and home along bushy lanes and tree-bordered highways, however, is an important link in the chain.

For children so placed the birds and every possible motive for wanting to know them lie at hand, but for this very reason the public library wherein the books to answer questions may be found is perhaps many miles away and it is not possible for every school or home to own the necessary bird books or charts.

It must not for a moment be thought that any attempt is made to say anything new or add to the information given in the many excellent and complete books now in circulation, but merely to condense in a simple form things that have been said. Not detailed descriptions and tabulated facts—for these repel the beginner and seem but the spelling-book or multiplication table in a new form—but to record the doings of some children who were eager to know; together with a few hints upon the migrations, winter feeding, and protection of some of our common birds, and the stories of their lives, that may lead both teacher and pupil to more detailed study when opportunity offers.

When a strange child comes to school, the first desire of his mates is to know his name and nationality, from whence he came, where he lives, whether he is merely a visitor or to be a permanent resident in the community. All this must be weighed and well considered before the newcomer is admitted to the friendship of his mates, and it may be that there will be some prejudices against him that the teacher must either remove by explanation or overcome by reason and example.

It is very much the same with a bird. After being attracted to him and fixing upon his name as an individual his identity should be still further established by finding to what family he belongs and then later on placing this family in one of the great orders of the bird world. These two last should not be dwelt upon, however, until the identity as an individual is established, but in the end it will help to keep the name in the memory to know the kinship of families as well.

There are many little points of comparison, of scientific but not general value that cannot be seen unless the dead bird is held in the hand, and then only a wise man, perhaps, would be able to point them out. It is with the living bird, on the wing or in its nest in the bushes, that we are concerned; not with the poor little dead thing with its limp neck and bloody, rumpled feathers.

Continue reading Gray Lady and the Birds: Stories of the Bird Year for Home and School free in the Wunder reader →