CHAPTER V.. How Madam Bird Combs Her Hair.

HOW MADAM BIRD COMBS HER HAIR.

Madam Bird is 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 long enough, 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, prefer something like a Chinaman's queue or the revolutionary braids. Others still comb their hair down plain and neat like little Quakers.

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 of the 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.

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, his coat 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 dress Were 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 chat Beneath the sky so blue and clear.