CHAPTER VI.. What Birds Carry in Their Pockets.

WHAT BIRDS CARRY IN THEIR POCKETS.

Some birds wear on their heads plumes, or bright and showy hats. These they sometimes lift in true bird style. There is the ruby-crowned kinglet 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.

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 and female, 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.

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 warm day. 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.

It gets pretty cold in the middle of the night, and Mr. 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 the tail. 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 have no 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 open his 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.