Part 68

For some kinds of birds we can build houses. You have been doing this all through the winter, I hear. Some of the many forms which can be used are shown in the pictures, but any ingenious boy can suggest a dozen other patterns. Although birds may not appreciate architecture, it is well to make the houses neat and tasty by taking pains to have the proportions right. The floor space in each compartment should be not less than five by six inches, and six by six or six by eight may be better. By cutting the boards in multiples of these numbers, one can easily make a house with several compartments; for there are some birds, as Martins, Tree Swallows, and Pigeons that like to live in families or colonies. The size of the doorway is important. It should be just large enough to admit the bird. A larger opening not only looks bad, but it exposes the inhabitants to dangers of cats and other enemies. Birds which build in houses, aside from Doves and Pigeons, are Bluebirds, Wrens, Tree Swallows, Martins, and sometimes the Chickadee. For the Wren and Chickadee the opening should be an inch-and-a-half augur-hole, and for the others it should be two inches. Only one opening should be provided for each house or compartment. A perch or doorstep should be provided just below each door. It is here that the birds often stop to arrange their toilets; and when the mistress is busy with domestic affairs indoors, the male bird often sits outside and entertains her with the latest neighbourhood gossip. These houses should be placed on poles or on buildings in somewhat secluded places. Martins and Tree Swallows like to build their nests twenty-five feet or more above the ground, but the other birds usually prefer an elevation less than twelve feet. Newly made houses, and particularly newly painted ones, do not often attract the birds.

But if the birds and I are companions, I must know them more intimately. Merely building houses for them is not enough. I want to know live and happy birds, not dead ones. We are not to know them, then, by catching them, nor stuffing them, nor collecting their eggs. Persons who make a business of studying birds may shoot birds now and then, and collect their eggs. But these persons are scientists and they are grown-up people. They are trying to add to the sum of human knowledge, but we want to know birds just because we want to. But even scientists do not take specimens recklessly. They do not rob nests. They do not kill brooding birds. They do not make collections merely for the sake of making them; and even their collections are less valuable than a knowledge of the bird as it lives and flies and sings.

Boys and girls should not make collections of eggs, for these collections are mere curiosities, as collections of spools and marbles are. They may afford some entertainment, to be sure, but one can find amusement in harmless ways. Some people think that making collections makes one a naturalist, but it does not. The naturalist cares more for things as they really are in their own homes than for museum specimens. One does not love the birds when he steals their eggs and breaks up their homes; and he is depriving the farmer of one of his best friends, for birds keep insects in check!

Stuffed birds do not sing and empty eggs do not hatch. Then let us go to the fields and watch the birds. Sit down on the soft grass and try to make out what the Robin is doing on yonder fence or why the Wren is bursting with song in the thicket. An opera-glass or spy-glass will bring them close to you. Try to find out not only what the colours and shapes and sizes are, but what their habits are. What does the bird eat? How much does it eat? Where is its nest? How many eggs does it lay? What colour are they? How long does the mother bird sit? Does the father bird care for her when she is sitting? For how long do the young birds remain in the nest? Who feeds them? What are they fed? Is there more than one brood in the season? Where do the birds go after breeding? Do they change their plumage? Are the mother birds and father birds unlike in size or colour? How many kinds of birds do you know?

These are some of the things which every boy or girl wants to know; and we can find out by watching the birds! There is no harm in visiting the nests, if one does it in the right way. I have visited hundreds of them and have kept many records of the number of eggs and the dates when they were laid, how long before they hatched, and when the birds flew away; and the birds took no offence at my inquisitiveness. These are some of the cautions to be observed: Watch only those nests which can be seen without climbing, for if you have to climb the tree, the birds will resent it. Make the visit when the birds are absent if possible; at least, never scare the bird from the nest. Do not touch the eggs or the nest. Make your visit very short. Make up your mind just what you want to see, then look in quickly and pass on. Do not go too often, once or twice a day will be sufficient. Do not take the other children with you, for you are then apt to stay too long and to offend the birds.

Now let us see how intimately you can become acquainted with some bird this summer.

—L. H. Bailey.

* * * * *

This is the little story that Miss Wilde read them, and they were very anxious as to what schoolhouse and children she really meant, but she said that was a secret.

THE BIRDS AND THE TREES

It was May Day. Half a dozen birds had collected in an old apple tree, which stood in a pasture close by the road that passed the schoolhouse; some of them had not met for many months, consequently a wave of conversation rippled through the branches.

“You were in a great hurry, the last time I saw you,” said the little black-and-white Downy Woodpecker to the Brown Thrasher, who was pluming his long tail, exclaiming now and then because the feathers would not lie straight.

“Indeed! When? I do not remember. What was I doing?”

“It was the last of October; a cold storm was blowing up, and you were starting on your southern trip in such a haste that you did not hear me call ‘good-by’ from this same tree, where I was picking insect eggs that expected to hide safely in the bark all winter, only to hatch into all kinds of mischief in the spring. But I was too quick for them; my keen eyes spied them and my beak chiselled them out. Winter and summer I’m always at work, yet some house-people do not understand that I work for my living. They seem to think that a bird who does not sing is good for nothing but a target for them to shoot at.”

“That is true,” said the dust-coloured Phœbe, dashing out to swallow a May beetle, which stuck in her throat, causing her to choke and cough. “I can only call, yet I worked with the best for the farmer where I lodged last year. I made a nest on his cowshed rafters and laid two sets of lovely white eggs, but his boys stole them and that was all my thanks for a season’s toil.”

“Singing birds do not fare much better,” said the Thrasher. “I may say frankly that I have a fine voice and I can sing as many tunes as any wild bird, but children rob my nest, when they can find it, and house-people drive me from their gardens, thinking I’m stealing berries.”

“They treat me even worse,” said the Robin, bolting a cutworm he had brought from a piece of ploughed land. “In spring, when I lead the Bird Chorus night and morning, they rob my nest. In summer they drive me from the gardens, where I work peacefully, and in autumn, when I linger through the gloomy days, long after your travelling brothers have disappeared, they shoot me for pot-pie!”

“It is a shame!” blustered Jennie Wren. “Not that I suffer much myself, for I’m not good to eat, and I’m a most ticklish mark to shoot at. Though I lose some eggs, I usually give a piece of my mind to any one who disturbs me, and immediately go and lay another nest full. Yet I say it is a shame, the way we poor birds are treated, more like tramps than citizens, though we are citizens, every one of us who pays rent and works for the family.”

“Hear, hear!” croaked the Cuckoo, with the yellow bill. He is always hoarse, probably because he eats so many caterpillars that his throat is rough with their hairs. “Something ought to be done, but can Jennie Wren tell us what it shall be?”

“I’ve noticed that most of the boys and girls who rob our nests and whose parents drive us from their gardens go every day to that square house down the road yonder,” said Mrs. Wren. “Now if some bird with a fine voice that would make them listen could only fly in the window and sing a song, telling them how useful even the songless bird brothers are, they might treat us better and tell their parents about us when they go home.”

“Well spoken,” said the Robin; “but who would venture into that house with all those boys? There is one boy in there who, last year, killed my mate with a stone in a bean-shooter, and also shot my cousin, a Bluebird. Then the boy’s sister cut off the wings of these dead brothers and wore them in her hat. I think it would be dangerous to go in that schoolhouse.”

“The windows are open,” said the Song Sparrow, who had listened in silence. “I hear the children singing, so they must be happy. I will go down and speak to them, for though I have no grand voice, they all know me and perhaps they will understand my homely wayside song.”

So the Sparrow flew down the road, but as he paused in the lilac hedge before going in the window, he heard that the voices were singing about birds, telling of their music, beauty, and good deeds. While he hesitated in great wonder at the sounds, the children trooped out, the girls carrying pots of geraniums which they began to plant in some beds by the walk. Then two boys brought a fine young maple tree to set in the place of an old tree that had died. A woman with a bright, pleasant face came to the door to watch the children at their planting, saying to the boys, “This is Arbour Day, the day of planting trees, but pray remember that it is Bird Day also. You may dig a deep hole for your tree and water it well; but if you wish it to grow and flourish, beg the birds to help you. The old tree died because insects gnawed it, for you were rough and cruel, driving all the birds away from hereabouts and robbing their nests.”

“Please, ma’am,” said a little girl, “our orchard was full of spinning caterpillars last season and we had no apples. Then father read in a book the government sent him that Cuckoos would eat the caterpillars all up, so he let the Cuckoos stay, and this year the trees are nice and clean and all set full of buds!”

* * * * *

The Song Sparrow did not wait to hear any more, but flew back to his companions with the news.

“I shall put my nest under the lilac hedge to show the children that I trust them,” said he, after the birds had recovered from their surprise.

“I will lodge in the bushes near the old apple tree,” said the Cuckoo; “it needs me sadly.”