 Preface of Birds of the Air. Birds of the Air by Arabella B. Buckley Preface These books are intended to interest children in country life. They are written in the simplest languages, so as to be fit for each class to read aloud. But the information given in them requires explanation and illustration by the teacher. I have, in fact, tried to make each lesson the groundwork for oral teaching. In the course of which the children should be encouraged to observe, to bring in specimens, and to ask questions, then when the question is read and re-read, as is the case with most school books, it will become part of the child's own knowledge. No one can be more aware than I am how very slight these outlines are, and how much more might have been given if space permitted. But I hope that much is suggested, and a teacher who loves nature will fill in the gaps. The charming illustrations will enable the children to identify the animals and plants mentioned. 1 Birds We Know I wonder how many birds you know by sight, and what you could tell about their nest and their lives. There are between three and four hundred different British birds, and very few people know them all. But in any one place, there are not more common birds than you could learn in a year. You can look for the rare ones afterwards. The best way to begin is to write down those you are sure about, and say how you recognize them. You cannot mistake a robin with his red breast, his plump little body, and his brown wings. The mother robin's breast is not quite so red, and the young have no red at all. But when you have seen them with their cock robin, you will soon know them by their shape. But a chaff inch has a red breast. How can you tell him from a robin? His breast is much browner than the robin's, and even at a distance you may know him by the white bands on his dark wings, and the yellow tips to some of his feathers. Even his body is longer, and he moves more gracefully than the robin. While his loud, pink, pink, if you go near his nest, will tell you at once what he is. The lark you know by his slender brown body and white speckled throat, and by the way he soars as he sings his sweet song. The common green woodpecker is easily known by his bright colors, his curious feet, and his stiff tail, which he uses to jerk himself up a tree. And though a nut-hatch also goes up a tree by jumps, you would never take him for a woodpecker, for he is no bigger than a sparrow, and he has a short tail and blue-gray wings and a dingy red breast. Then you know the cooing wood pigeon, the chattering magpie, the soaring hawk, and his hooked beak, and the downy owl, and I dare say you could tell me of many more. The birds you know best will most of them be with us all the year round, but not all. The swifts fly away to the south in August, and the swallows and the martins follow in October. When they are gone the field-fairs come from the north, and feed in the flocks on the worms in the damp fields, and on the holly-berries when the ground is hard with frost. The swallow and the house-martin are so alike that as they come and go together you might not know them apart, unless you remember that a swallow has a blue-black collar across his breast, and that the fork of his tail is longer than that of the martin. You may be busy all the year round watching the birds, seeing when they come and go, what food they eat, how they fly, whether they sing in the morning or evening, and where they build their nests. Many farmers and gardeners shoot little birds because they eat their corn and peas and fruit, but a large number of birds feed chiefly on insects. You ought to know which these are, for they are very useful in clearing away earwigs and caterpillars, as well as slugs and snails. If you look out early some morning and see a thrush tapping a snail-shell against a stone to get at the snail, you will say he is a good gardener. You will not grudge him a little fruit in the summer. Then there are the nests and the young birds to watch. You need not take the nest, nor rob the birds of their eggs. You will learn much more by pulling back the leaves and the twigs, and peeping gently into the nest. For then you can come another day and watch when the eggs hatch, and how the young birds grow. If you are careful not to disturb the bush nor touch the eggs, the mother will not desert them. Last year a pair of thrushes built their nest in a hedge by the side of a path where people were always passing. But though I went often to look at it, the mother brought up all her four little ones. She would even sit still on the nest when I peeped in, while her mate sang on a tree close by. Point out and describe six birds common in the neighborhood. CHAPTER II The Song of Birds Birds sing when they are happy, and cry out when they are frightened, just as children do. Only they have songs and cries of their own. You can always tell when the little songbirds are happy, for each one trills out his joyous notes as he sits on a branch of a tree or the top of a hedge. In the early morning of the spring you will hear singing in the garden almost before it is light. First there is a little chirping and twittering as if the birds were saying, good morning, and preparing their throats. Then as the sun rises there comes a burst of song. Robins, thrushes, black birds, chaff inches, and drens whistle away merrily, and many other little birds join in. While they are all singing together, it is not easy to tell one song from another, though the thrush sings loudest and clearest of all. Then they fly away to their breakfast, and as the day goes on you hear one or two at a time. So you can listen to the notes of each song, and if you go near very quietly you can see the throat of the bird swelling and quivering as he works the little voice cords inside, which make the notes. It is not easy to write down what a bird sings, for it is like whistling. There are no words in it. But people often try to imitate their songs in words. Listen to the thrush. You can fancy, he says, cherry tree, cherry tree, cherry tree, three times. Then after some other notes he sings, hurry up, hurry up, and go it, go it. For the thrush has a great many notes. The pretty yellow hammer with his bright yellow head sings a little bit of bread and no cheese. The chif-chaff calls, chif-chaff, chif-chaff, quite distinctly. Any child can imitate the cuckoo or the coo-oo-oo of the wood pigeon. As the days grow hotter the birds sing less. They sit on the branches of the trees or on the hedges under the shade of the leaves or hop about in the wood. Then when the evening comes and long shadows creep over the grass each bird looks out for his supper. When he is satisfied he sings his evening song of content before he goes to sleep. Not a concert it is. Finches, tom-tits, sparrows, wrens, robins, and chaff-finches all singing at once. And above them all come the song of the thrushes and blackbirds, the cooing of the wood pigeon and the call, call, of the rooks as they fly home from the fields. As the thrushes were the first to begin in the morning, except the lark, so they are the last to leave off at night. And often one thrush will go on long after all the others are quiet. Then at last all seem to have settled down for the night. But no. If you live in Kent or any part of the south or east of England you may hear in May or June a sweet sound like a flute coming softly from many parts of the wood. This comes from the nightingales who, in the warm summer, will sing nearly all night. They sing in the day as well, but their note is so soft that often you cannot hear it when more noisy birds are singing. In the still night you can hear the sweet song rising up six notes and then bubbling like a flute played in water. When you have once heard a nightingale sing you will never forget it. In Yorkshire and Devonshire you will not hear him, for he does not go so far to the north or to the west. Birds sing most in the spring, for then they are making their nest, and the father bird sings to the mother while she is building, and when she is sitting on the eggs. You may often find out where a robin's nest is hidden by seeing the cock robin sitting on a branch singing to his mate. Most people too have seen the wood pigeon puffing out his throat and cooing and bowing to the mother bird on her nest, for pigeons make love all the year round. When the mother bird is sitting the father bird sings for joy, and when the young birds are hatched he teaches them his song. Songbirds have very delicate throats, they have muscles which quiver like the strings of a violin, and the young birds have to learn to work these muscles. It is curious to hear a young blackbird or thrush beginning to try a tune. First he sounds one note, then two or three. They are not always in tune, but he tries again and again. So little by little he learns his father's song. Listen to the song of birds, robins, thrushes, blackbirds, larks, nightingales, bullfinches, and others, and try to imitate them by whistling. End of Chapter 2 This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. CHAPTER 3 THE NESTS OF BIRDS If you want to know how clearly nests are made, you should collect a few which the birds have deserted, or from which the young birds have flown. You will find a hedge sparrows nest in many a hawthorn push, and though it is a simple nest, I think you will find, if you pull it to pieces, that you cannot put it together again as well as the bird did. A chaff-inches nest is more finely woven. You will most likely find one in the apple trees in the orchard. It is made of dry grass and moss matted together with wool in the shape of a deep cup, and lined with hair and feathers. Outside the bird will most likely have stuck pieces of gray or white lichen. Lichen is the papery-looking plant which grows on apple trees and which children call gray moss. The pieces woven in help to hide the nest in an apple tree. When a chaff-inch builds in a green hedge, she often uses green moss instead. Now try to find a thrush's nest. It may be in a laurel bush or a fir tree. It is large and quite firm, not soft like the hedge sparrows nest. For the thrush plasters the inside with mud or cow dung or rotten wood, till it is almost as hard as the inside of a coconut shell. When you have looked at these nests, you will want to see one built next spring. But this is not so easy, for birds try to hide the cradles of their little ones, and do not like to work when anyone is near. Rooks are the easiest to watch, for they build in high trees and therefore are not shy. You may see them flying along with pieces of stick in their mouths and bringing mud and clay to plaster them together. Sometimes you may see the old rooks staying behind in the rookery to steal the sticks from the nest of the young rooks while they are away, instead of fetching them for themselves. Birds do not all make the same shaped nest. The lark makes her nest of grass in a rut or a furrow of the field. The green clover or pee-wit, whose cry you know so well, pee-wit, pee-wit, lays a few bits of grass or rush in a marsh or in a rough field. Her little ones run about as soon as they come out of the egg. The swallows build their nest of mud and straw on the rafters of barns and under the ledges of chimneys, in the shape of a shallow basin and line them with feathers. But the martins build under the eaves. They make their nest of clay stuck against the wall like a bag, with only a small hole at the top. It is very funny to see the tail of a martin sticking out when she puts her head into her nest to feed the young ones. The woodpecker makes a hole in a tree for her nest and lines it with chips of wood. The nut hatch looks out for a hole in a branch and lines it with flakes of bark and dry leaves. Even if it is too big, she fills up the opening with clay, all except one little hole. Rooks and pigeons build coarse nests. The rooks build theirs of sticks and turf, lined with grass and moss. The pigeon leaves her so loose that the eggs almost slip through. Then the little singing-birds, the warblers, the thrushes, the nightingales, and the robins, build lovely cup-nests. The warblers weave their nest round two or three reeds or other plants near the water. It is made of plates of grass and lined with waterweed. The wren, the long-tailed tit-mouse, and the chif-chaff build nests in the shape of a ball with a hole in one side. The chif-chaff lines hers with a beautifully soft layer of feathers. Wrens build in all sorts of strange places, in walls and trees, and holes of rocks, on the tops of hedges and on the banks of rivers. If you look about near the nest in which the wren has laid her eggs, you will often find one or two other nests built exactly like it, but not lined with feathers. They are called cocks nests. We do not know why the birds build them. Perhaps one day you may find out if you watch. The chif-chaff hides her nest in the hedges or banks and the long-tailed tit-mouse loves to build in the gorse bushes. Once two wrens were watched building their nest in a juniper tree. They began at seven o'clock in the morning. The mother wren brought some leaves from a lime tree. She put one leaf in a fork of the tree and laid the others round it. Then she went back for more. So she went on all day, bringing in leaves and matting them together with moths, and all the while the cock wren sang to her from the top of the tree. By seven o'clock in the evening she had made the outside of the nest in the shape of a ball with a hole in one side. Next day the two birds began work together at half-past three in the morning. They worked for eight days, carrying in moths and feathers. When they had done the nest was a firm little ball lined with a thick layer of soft feathers, for their wee wrens to lie in when they were hatched. Then the mother wren laid five small white eggs with a few red spots upon them, and sat for a whole fortnight while her mate sang to her, and brought her insects to eat. Examine nests, mud-built, swallow, marten, roughly woven, house sparrow, cut nests, hedge sparrow, chaff inch, woven and mud lined, thrush. End of Chapter 3 When you have looked at several birds' nests you will want to see what the eggs are like. Try first to find those which are near your home. Some are so well hidden that you will have to watch where the old birds go in and out before you can find them. Others, like the nests of rooks, magpies, and jays, are easy to see, but not easy to reach. Do not take the eggs. Each will hatch out into a happy little bird, and if you carry the egg home it would only be broken. Your teacher will very likely collect one of each kind which will do to show the class for many years. Look well at the eggs in the nest, then you will know them again when you find them in another place. Count how many there are, and notice if any more are laid afterwards. Then reckon how long the eggs are being hatched after the last one is laid. You will find it is about a fortnight for the small birds, and a day or two longer for the rooks and pigeons. Then you can watch the feeding of the young birds, which we shall talk about in the next two lessons. It is better not even to touch the eggs, for some birds, like the wood pigeon, will desert their nest if the eggs have been handled. Other birds are not so particular. Mr. Kyrton tells us that when he was a boy he used to find Plover's nest and amuse himself by turning the large end of the egg into the middle of the nest. As soon as the tidy mother came back she always turned them round again with the points in the middle. The baby bird always comes out at the large end, so this gives them more room as they hatch out. If you have a laurel hedge in the garden, you may find a thrush's nest in it, with four to six beautiful blue eggs, about an inch long and spotted with black at the large end. See picture, page 10. The mother will scold you well, and perhaps will not leave the nest, and you will have to take your chance when she is away. You may find a black bird's nest not far off. You will know it from the thrush's nest because it is lined with fine roots and grass, so is not hard inside. The eggs are greener with red-brown spots. The missile thrush generally builds in a tree, and her eggs are a light buff color, spotted with reddish-brown and pale lilac. The chaff inch will build close to your house or in the apple trees of the orchard, and a pair of bullfinches may make their nest in the ivy of the old garden wall, though they are shy birds. The chaff inch's eggs are a pale, brown-green color with brown spots. See picture, page 20. They are about one-third the size of the thrush's egg. The bullfinches are a pale blue spotted with brown or purple. Be careful when you look at the bullfinch's nest, for though the mother will sit still, the father will be angry, and he may make her desert her nest if he sees you. You will have to get a ladder if you want to see a martin's nest, for they build under the eaves of the house. And when you pull away a little of the nest and look in, make sure that you see the right eggs, for Ospero will often take a martin's nest and lay her eggs in it. You can find out by watching which bird goes into the nest. But if you cannot do this, you may know by the color of the eggs. A martin's egg is white, without any spots upon it. Ospero's egg is gray with brown blotches on it. When the sparrow builds her own nest, it is made of straw or hay lined with feathers. It has about five or six eggs in it. It is easier to look into a swallow's nest than into a martin's, for it is not covered at the top and is often put upon a rafter in a barn. It will have about five white eggs in it, with dark red patches on them. Watch these nests carefully, for when the eggs are hatched, it is very pretty to see the old swallows teaching the young ones to catch flies. See picture, page forty-five. We must not forget the robins, though I expect you know their eggs well. They are white, spotted with light red, and you may easily find them, for in the spring there is a robin's nest in almost every bank or hedgerow. You may look for a tom-tits nest in all sorts of strange places, from a hole in a tree to a flower-pot which has been thrown away. There will be a number of little white eggs in it speckled with red. The mother will hiss and peck at you to prevent you from taking them away, but in a few days she will not be afraid, for she is a bold little bird. You must learn to look for other eggs yourselves. In the barn you may find the owl's large white eggs and sometimes young birds and eggs together. In a bank of a river or a hole in a wall you may find the nest of a water-wag-tail, with grayish white spotted eggs. The rook's bluish-green eggs sometimes fall down from their nest, and the jack-dolls will build in your chimneys. When you have spent some time hunting for nests and eggs, you will notice how cunningly they are hidden by the color and their marks. Wherever you find white eggs, like those of the owl, the marten, the woodpecker, the kingfisher, and the pigeon, they are either quite hidden in a bank, a tree-trunk, or a deep nest, or they are high up out of reach. Most other eggs are spotted, and they are either some shade of green or gray or brown, like the moss and leaves and twigs of the nest. In any nest you can find, see how many of the eggs grow up into young birds. There's one nest each. To watch and see which child can count up most young birds. CHAPTER V. OF BIRDS OF THE AIR BY ARABELLA B. BUCKLEY. RECORDED FOR LIBERVOX.ORG. CHAPTER V. BABY BIRDS. The mother bird sits on the nest and keeps the eggs warm all the time that the little birds are growing inside. She never leaves them except to stretch herself and get food. Sometimes the father bird sits while she is away, where he brings food to her. Sometimes he only sings to her. The first thing that the baby birds do for themselves is to get out of the egg. When they are ready you may hear them crying, peep, peep, peep, inside. Then they tap away at the big end with a little horny tip which grows on the top of their beak, and the shell cracks, and out they come. If you can catch a chicken as soon as it is out of the egg, you may see this horny tip. But you must be quick, for a chicken is a very active baby bird. It runs about directly it is hatched, and the horny tip falls off. The next thing young birds do is to open their beaks and cry for food. Some, like the chickens, ducks, and partridges, come out with downy feathers all over them. These run about and get food for themselves. Their mother takes care of them, and they cuddle under her wing when she calls to them. Others, like the pigeon, the sparrow, and the thrush, are naked, blind, and helpless when they are hatched. They cannot get out of the nest, and their parents have to feed them. If you keep doves in a cage, or if you can climb up to the pigeon boxes where the pigeons have their nest, you may learn a good deal by watching a baby pigeon. The day it comes out of the egg, its eyelids are tightly closed. It has only a few downy tufts on its naked body, so you can see its fleshy wing and feel the bones. Handle it carefully, and notice that its wing has three joints, just like your arm. One at the shoulder, close to the body. One at the elbow, and one at the wrist. As it lies in the nest, it draws its elbow back and touches its shoulder with its hand. Then the wing is shut. But if you take hold of the hand gently, and pull the arm out straight, then the wing is open. This is just what a bird does when he stretches his wings to fly. Now watch the little ones day by day. By degrees, pimples come out all over the body. Then the middle of each pimple sinks in and some feathers peep out. The first feathers are quite limp. The little featherlets grow all around the stem like hairs on a cat's tail. These are the down feathers. There are not many on a young pigeon. The nest feathers are quite different. They are flat and much stiffer. The featherlets only grow on each side of the stem. They are tinted. And you can see now whether the pigeon is going to be white or colored. It is these covering feathers which are so beautiful in most birds. They do not grow all over the body. If you push back the feathers of a dead bird, you will see that they grow in places only and spread themselves over the rest. Meanwhile, the long tail and wing feathers have been growing. Those for the tip of the wing grow on the hand. Those for the edge of the wing on the arm. Between the wrist and the elbow. And above these, like tiles on a roof, grow the small feathers right up to the shoulder, making the wing round and firm. Fill one of the long wing feathers. It has a strong quilt down the middle which tapers away at the end so that the feather will bend. Now try to pull the featherlets apart. You will find that they stick together as if they are glued. This is because they are tiny hooks all along each little branch by which it is hooked on to the next one. So when the wings beat the air, it cannot pass through them, especially as the small side of each feather lies over the broad side of the next one. By this time the young pigeons will have opened their eyes, but though they can stand up, they are very weak and take all their food from their mother. Then about a month after coming out of the egg, they go to the edge of the pigeon house and watch the other pigeons. From time to time they stretch out their wings and flap them a little. As they flap them downwards, the air under the front of the wing cannot get away there and is driven out behind, just as water is driven by an oar when we row. But as they lift the wing up again, the feathers turn so that the air can pass through. Therefore, as they flap their wings, they raise themselves a little and flutter to the nest ledge. And at last they fly to the ground and begin to pick up food with their parents. Compare a young pigeon and a young chicken. Examine the down feathers, covering feathers, and long quill feathers. End of Chapter 5. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit libervox.org. Chapter 6 of Birds of the Air by Arabella B. Buckley. Recorded for libervox.org. Chapter 6. Birds Feeding Their Young. You will find it very interesting to peep into nest and see which birds are naked and which are downy, which can see and which are blind. By the river the little water hens come out of the egg as black fluffy balls with red heads and swim away at once after their mother. But king fishers come out of the egg naked and helpless. They have to wait till their feathers have grown before they can leave the nest. And meanwhile their mother feeds them with fish. Then if you see a young owl in its nest in a barn or pick up a young hawk which has fallen out of a tree, you will find that they are quite blind and helpless, though they are covered with down. Their mothers have to bring them insects, mice, and young rabbits till they are full grown. Those of you who live by the seaside know quite well the young gulls which fly out to sea and float on the waves. In the spring and early summer you may hear the young gulls called sea-mews or kitty-wakes, mewing like kittens on the ledges of the cliffs. They are calling to their parents to feed them. See picture, page 71. For though these young gulls can see and are covered with down, they are born so high up on the cliffs that they must sit and wait till they are strong. Even then they can only creep along the ledges till their wings are full grown. They sit there with open beaks, crying to be fed, and the old sea-birds bring fish for them to eat. The common gulls and the herring gulls generally lay their eggs on islands, and the little ones swim about when they are only a few days old. Or if you live far away from the sea in the depths of the country, you will enjoy seeing the other kinds of birds feeding their young ones in the trees and in the hedges. Sometimes the mother does all the work, and sometimes the father takes his share. Mr. Kirtan, who knows so much about birds, tells us that he once helped in the feeding. One day he watched a mother chif-chaff bringing food to her five little ones in a nest under a thorn bush. Chif-chaffs are very small, graceful birds. Their back and wings are a kind of dull olive green color, and their breasts a yellowish white. The mother was bringing in caterpillars and flies, about four or five every five minutes, and she popped them into the little beaks stretched to reach them. As she worked, her mate flew first to one bow, then to another singing, chif-chaff, chif-chaff. Mr. Kirtan thought he would help the little mother. He collected some green caterpillars and put them on the edge of the nest while she was away. Then he knelt down a little way off. The mother flew to and fro at her work, and looked at him as she passed, but he did not move. At last she picked up the insects he had brought, and divided them among the little mouths. Then she flew away for more. That little mother worked all day long, only resting for half an hour in the afternoon. She not only brought food, but also cleaned the nest between each journey, picking out the pellets of dung, and making everything clean and neat. I think she must have been very glad of the little heaps of insects which her friend put near her nest from time to time. Tom-tits are such bold little birds that you may often see them going in and out of a hole in some wall, or a tree stump, with insects in their mouths. The father and mother-tit both helped in feeding. See page thirty-six. They go out and come back together, laden with caterpillars, and after giving them to the young ones they start off again, calling to each other as they go. We had some young robins once, which were fed by three birds. They were born in the hedge of our garden. We called the third bird the uncle. He worked quite as hard as the other two. By and by the old robins flew away, but the young ones stayed with us all the summer, and used to hop about the dinner table and pick up the crumbs. Parent birds feed their baby birds with large worms, which they pull to pieces, giving a bit to each. The jay looks as if she brought nothing, but she pours the food from her crop into the mouth of the little one. The mother pigeon throws the food up from her crop into her mouth, and the little pigeon puts his beak in at the side of its mother's beak and sucks out the food. Most parent birds go on feeding the little ones for some time after they can fly. You may often see little sparrows or thrushes sitting in a row on a bow while the mother pops the food into their beaks. She begins at one end and goes quite fairly from one to another, each in its turn. Watch for birds feeding young in the spring. Thrushes, sparrows, robins, tom-tits. One in the nest. Two sitting on branches. Three small birds feeding a young cuckoo. Four young pigeon taking food from the mother. End of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 of Birds of the Air by Arabella B. Buckley, recorded for LibriVox.org. Chapter 7 Where do birds sleep? There are all the birds at night. In the daytime we see them in the fields, on the trees and hedges or on the cliffs. They feed in the garden, the orchard and the wood. But in the evening when the sun sets we hear them singing as if they were saying good night, and then they disappear. Only the night birds are about after sunset. Owls hoot and fly after dark. Nightingales sing all night in warm summer weather. And if there are any corn-crakes about you will hear their tiresome cry, crake, crake, long after you want to go to sleep. But the other birds are nowhere to be seen. Where are they? It is not easy to find them, for they hide themselves from fear of the owls, the weasels and the stoats, and they wake and flutter away very soon if you come near them. The small birds sleep chiefly in the hedges. You will be surprised how difficult it is to see them, even in winter when the leaves are off the trees. Before the twigs and branches crossing each other hide them well. No owl or hawk could seize a bird in a hawthorne hedge. But how do they keep themselves upon the twigs when they are fast asleep? If you or I tried to sleep standing up we should fall, for our muscles would grow slack, our heads would nod and our knees would give way under us. It is different with a bird. He sits on a branch and grasps it with his claws. Then he squats down and bends his legs. As he does this, a muscle around his knee joints pulls the muscles of his toes quite tight, so that his claws are kept clasped around the branch. He cannot move till he has raised himself up and straightened his legs, and thus set his claws free. So the more soundly he sleeps, the tighter he grasps the bow, and the less likely he is to fall. Birds sleep out of doors both summer and winter, and they have a curious covering to keep them warm. It is made of air. When a bird goes to roost, he tucks his head under the plumage of his shoulder, and puffs out his feathers, so that the air gets in between them, and settles all among the soft down which grows close to his body. This air soon becomes warm, and as it cannot get out, it prevents the bird's warm body from being chilled by the cold air outside. Still, in bad weather, birds often like to find warm nooks to sleep in. House sparrows, tits, wrens, and other small birds sometimes make holes in haystacks for their beds. The owls keep themselves warm in barns, church towers, and sometimes in holes in the trunks of trees. The blue tit loves to sleep under a thatched roof, and wrens often hunt up old nests in winter, and huddle together in them to keep themselves warm. Swallows and swifts do not want to be kept warm, for they fly south in cold weather. In summer they perch on the rafters in the barns, and if you go into a barn after dark you may often hear them flitting from one rafter to another if they are disturbed. Wood pigeons roost on the fir trees in the wood, and hawks on the branches of the taller trees. Pheasants too roost in the trees of the wood, and it is curious that they always tell you where they go to bed, for they call crock crock as they settle down to sleep. But partridges sleep on the ground in the fields. They lie in a circle with their heads outwards and their tails together. The father generally sleeps a little way off as a sentinel. Then if a fox or a weasel tries to catch them in their sleep, anyone that is awake and sees the enemy can give the alarm to the rest. All these birds sleep inland in the woods and fields. But if you can go to the seashore some summer evening and lie on the beach under the high cliffs, you may see other birds coming home to roost. Just as the sun is setting, many little birds from the fields perch in the bushes at the top of the rocks. Next come any jackdaws, which happen to live near the sea, cackling and chasing each other over the cliffs. They creep into holes to sleep. Then a few big cormorants sail in from the sea, followed by the gulls, and settle on the ledges halfway down the face of the cliff. Some croaking ravens come flying from the land and twist and tumble about before they too sit down for the night. The sand martins disappear into their holes in the sandstone rocks, and perhaps a falcon will come circling round in the air and swoop down in some quiet nook. Then after a time the cackling and the croaking cease, and as the sun rises all is quiet. But if you look on the silvery water you will see that many of the gulls are still floating on the waves, and they may remain there all the night. Watch the birds going to roost at night, and notice their special haunts. End of Chapter 7. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 8 of Birds of the Air by Arabella B. Buckley. Recorded for LibriVox.org. Chapter 8. Feeding in Summer. Spring and summer are happy times for birds. Then there is plenty of food for them and their little ones. Let us go out some fine summer morning, and watch the different birds as they feed. You will not see them all in one day, but you ought to find each one some time during the summer. Close to the house you are sure to see a house-barrow picking up scraps in the yard, and eating the caterpillars and red spiders on the gooseberry bushes in the kitchen garden. For the sparrow is not dainty. He will eat most things, from a grain of wheat, to a scrap of meat. In the kitchen garden, too, you may see the chaff inch breaking the husks of seeds with his sharp little beak. He is not particular whether he takes them from the weeds or from the beds of radishes or turnips, which we have sown. But he does us more good than harm, for he destroys a great deal of ground soil and chickweed. Out in the fields, the little brown lark, which has been singing in the sky, drops down to hunt for seeds in the furrows turned up by the plow. In the rickyard I can see several little finches, the green finch and the yellow hammer, picking up the grains of corn. All these birds feed usually on grain, and have short sharp beaks which will split the husks, though they sometimes eat insects and feed their young ones on them. We have to drive them away from our wheat and oats for a few weeks in the year, but they are very useful in keeping down the weeds, for they eat every seed they can find. The swallows, swifts, and martens have very different beaks. If you watch them as they skim along in the air, you will see they can open their mouths very wide to catch the flies and gnats. But the hard beak itself is very small. They have weak legs and strong wings, for they catch all their food as they fly. Notice how near the ground they keep in dull weather. Then the insects are flying low, and the swallows follow them. But on a bright day the gnats and midges fly higher, so the swallows fly higher too. That big thrush which is hopping about on the grass is very different from the swallows. He has strong feet and legs and a long, narrow, round beak. He feeds on worms and snails in the summer, and on berries in the autumn. Look at him now. He has his feet firmly planted on the grass, and he is pulling away at a worm with all his might. He will get it out of the ground soon, and carry it away to feed his little ones. Many of the smaller perching birds feed only on insects. I am sure you will love them. They are such pretty little things. First there is the wag-tail with his black and white wings, and his long tail bobbing up and down as he hunts for insects in the grass. Not far off is a little wren hopping on a roast-tree, and picking off the green fly, which does so much harm. On a bush near sits a small brownbird with a gray-speckled breast. He only came back to England for warm countries at the end of May. That's the common-spotted fly-catcher. Look how still he sits. Then all at once he darts into the air with wide open mouth, snaps his beak, and goes back to his place. He has caught a fly, and will now sit and wait for another. Next, I want you to look at a little bird which I love, because he is so bright and gay. He is a blue tit, or tom-tit. See picture, page 36. A small bird with a bright blue head and wings, and a yellow breast. He is hanging upside down on the branch of a tree, watching for spiders. When he has caught one, he will flutter off to another tree, and get a good breakfast in a very little while. He is a very bold little bird, and in the winter you may learn to know him well if you will give him some food. These birds, the thrush, the wag-tail, the fly-catcher, the wren, and the tom-tit are very useful to us. They kill the snails and slugs, the caterpillars, maggots, and grubs. So do the nightingale and the blackbird, and another little bird which I want you to know. This is the hedge sparrow, a small brown bird with a blue gray breast, which flutters along the lanes. I am sure you must have seen him. He picks up a tiny insect, flits a little way, and picks up another, and then flits away again just in front of you as you walk along the lane. You must not confuse him with the house sparrow. He is quite another kind of bird. He is one of the warblers, and sings very sweetly. He is sometimes called the hedge warbler, and this is a much better and truer name for him. We have not much time to watch other birds, but we must look at the rooks hunting for worms and slugs in the plowed fields. And as we come near the wood, I see a partridge feeding on ants under the trees. He flies away with a loud whir long before we get near him, and as he cries, cluck, cluck, I expect the mother bird and her nest are not far off. If you go into the wood, you may see the little tree creeper running up the trees, looking for insects, and the woodpeckers darting out his sticky tongue and tapping at the trunks of the trees, and the wood pigeon flying home with her crop full of oats or peas to feed her little ones. Or, if you stroll by the river, there may be the tiny king fisher darting down to seize tiny fish, or the grave heron sitting quite still, with his neck stretched out, till in a moment his head shoots forward, and he brings up a big ill in his beak. You can notice many of these things for yourselves. The great secret is to look at every bird you see and try to learn something about it. Notice the hard beaks of birds which eat seeds, chaff-inch. The hooked beaks of birds which eat flesh, hawk. The wide gape of birds which catch insects on the wing, swallow. The long slender beaks of birds which fill underground for food. Woodcock. End of Chapter 8. When summer is over there is not so much food for the birds, and some begin to go away. Those which live on flying insects go first. The cuckoo is generally gone by the end of July. The swifts start off in August, and about the middle of September the swallows begin to find very few flies, gnats, or moths, and get ready for their long journey. If you keep a sharp lookout you may see the swallows and martins collecting about the fifteenth of September on some church tower, or perhaps on the roof of a barn, and flying off together to roost in the trees. This they never do in the summer. Then they sleep on the rafters of some barn or under the eaves of a roof, always keeping near buildings. But before they fly away for the winter they gather together in the trees or in the willows of the osher beds. Then some morning, very early, they all disappear. They have started to fly steadily in large flocks, for hundreds of miles, to Africa, where they will have warm weather and insects to eat all the winter. You will not see them again till next April. The little fly-catchers and the nightingales go away about the same time as the swallows, and the chif-chaff goes in October. Some of the wag-tails and robins go too, but not nearly all. A great many birds shift from place to place in England during the autumn, for food begins to be scarce, and they wander in search of it. Many thrushes and red-wings come to us from Norway and Germany, and robins, finches, and other birds come from the north of England to the south. They leave the cold moors and mountains of Cumberland and Yorkshire to feed in Hampshire and Devonshire, where they can find more berries, such as hips and haws, hollyberries, juniper berries, pillows, and the red berries of the mountain ash. So if you live in the south of England, you may see more robins, thrushes, chaff-inches, and yellow-hammers in the winter than you did in the summer. You will find it very interesting to watch for the different birds, and see when they come and go, and whether you may see many or few of any one kind. You will notice that in winter the little birds move about in flocks instead of alone or in pairs as they do in the summer when they have their nests and families. In November you will see a great many larks together. The cock-chaff-inches sometimes fly in one flock and the hen-chaff-inches in another. The finches, too, fly in parties, yellow-hammers, green-finches, and gold-finches all together. They hunt about for seeds and sleep on the ground or in the ivy-pushes. But the bull-finches, with their lovely blue-black wings and bright red breast, keep together in small flocks, flying in a line one after the other along the hedges. These flocks of different birds flit about from one field to another, keeping together and scattering over one place at a time, looking for food. When many of our summer birds have gone to the sunny south, other birds come to us from still colder countries. The field fares fly over from Norway and Sweden. You may see them in parties of about forty or fifty, willing round in the air and settling down on a field to look for grubs and seeds. They are pretty gray birds with brown-red wings and buff-speckled breasts. But you cannot often get near enough to see them, for they are very shy. If they hear a noise they are off in a moment and over the hedge into the next field where they drop down again to feed. They sleep on the ground and go back to Norway to build their nest in the spring. A great many starlings come from Norway and Germany in the winter and join those which live with us always. They often fly about with the rooks, but sometimes in flocks by themselves, peaking in the fields and chattering one to another. So when the songbirds are silent in the winter, you can look out for all these other birds and find out where they feed and sleep. When you see the first of them come and when you see the last one go, but the thresh in the robin will sing all the year through when the weather is mild. Make a list of summer birds which you do not see in the winter. Make a list of winter birds which go away in the spring. Make another list of birds you see all the year round. CHAPTER 10. BIRDFOOD IN WINTER When Christmas is past and the real winter cold begins, the poor little birds often have a hard time. So long as the weather is mild, the thresh picks out the slugs and snails from their hiding-places in the walls and palings. The robin and the wren bustle about, looking for seeds and insects. The little wag-tails run about the lawns, wagging their tails, as they try to find a stray grub or a beetle. In the wood the tree-creeper hunts for spiders and the eggs of insects in the bark of the trees, and the nut-hatches and pigeons feed under the beaches. But after a while, when a hard frost comes, and snow lies deep on the ground, the birds look very sad. The larks and the linets crouch down under the banks of the cornfields to keep warm. The threshes fly from tree to tree to look for a few mistletoe berries, now that all the others are eaten. The chaff inches and the yellow hammers fly round the farmer's ricks to pull out some grains of wheat or oats or grass-seeds. The field-fairs wander sadly about in flocks. The rooks, starlings, and jack-dolls fly from field to field, screaming and cawing, as they try to find some place where the wind has blown the snow away, and they can peck in the furrows. The lap-wings, which you may know by the feathers which stand up on the back of their head, cry, Pee-wheat, Pee-wheat! Mournfully, as they journey to the sea-coast, where they find food on the sands and mud-flats at low tide. It is sad to think how often little birds are starved to death. They do not so much mind the cold, for you remember that the air under their feathers keeps them warm. But in a hard winter they often die from want of food. If you pick up a dead robin, starling, or rook after a long frost, you will find that the bones are only covered with skin and feathers. This flesh has all wasted away. Now is your time to be kind to the birds which have sung to you all the summer. They did good work then, eating the caterpillars and grubs, the wireworms and maggots, the slugs and snails, and keeping down the weeds by eating the seeds. Now you can feed them for a little while, till the frost and snow are gone. You will learn to know a great many birds in this way, and you need only give them a few scraps, which you can well spare. Some birds, you will remember, like seeds and crumbs and green food. Others, which eat insects in the summer, will be glad of a little gristle or fat. So you must save up every scrap from breakfast, dinner, and supper, and keep it for the next morning. Crusts of bread, the crumbs off the table, cold potatoes and potato skins. You can get your mother to boil the potatoes in their skins, and then the birds will like the peel. Perhaps, too, you may have some pieces of cabbage, some apple pairings, and a little fat. All this will make a nice dish for starving birds. If you chop it up and pour a little hot water over the crusts, and if you live on a farm, you may be able to sweep up a few grains of corn in the stables before they are thrown away with the manure. Then clear the snow away in front of your door, throw the food down, and go back out of sight. The birds will soon come, and in a few days they will even be waiting about for their morning meal before you bring it. You must not forget to hang a piece of fat from the branch of a tree, so that you may see the tits hang head downwards on the string to peck at it. And if you hang up a bone with a little meat on it, the starlings and jackdolls will come, too. Then remember that birds want to drink. You can put water for them in a pan if you change it when it freezes. But if you can spare a few pints to buy a coconut, you may make it serve two purposes. Saw it across the middle and scoop out all the white from one half. Bore two holes near the rim of this cup and make a handle with a piece of string. Then hang it on a tree and put some water in it. The birds will sit on the rim and drink. And as they make it swing to and fro, the water will not freeze. Then hang up the other half in the same way, but leave the white inside. The little tom tits will peck away and fight for the sweet food till it is all gone. A number of birds will come. Robins, chaffinches, sparrows, wrens, starlings, rooks, jackdolls, thrushes, and many others. You will be able to notice the difference between the big missile thrush with his white-spotted breast and the smaller, brown song thrush. And if you put some nuts on the window seal, the nut hatch may come to fetch them if he lives near. So you will see the birds more closely than you can at any other time. And next summer, when they sing in the trees, they will be old friends. Make a list of the birds which come to feed at your door in winter. End of chapter 10. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 11 of Birds of the Air by Arabella B. Buckley. Recorded for LibriVox.org. Chapter 11. Other Small Birds. There are many other small birds which you may find out for yourselves, but I should like to tell you of a few which are interesting. First, there is the little goldfinch, which is so useful to us because it eats thistle seeds and dandelion seeds. It builds a lovely little nest of fine roots, wool, and horse hair, and often lines it with a soft down of the colts foot. That big yellow flower which blossoms in the spring and has feathery seed boxes. The goldfinch has a beautiful red forehead and throat and black wings barred with yellow and tipped with white. You may know it from the bullfinch because its breast is pale brown, while the bullfinch has a rich red breast and gray and black wings. Then there is the cocklinnit with his crimson breast, brown wings, and a red patch on his head. Linnits change color at different times of the year. In the winter the breasts of both birds are gray, striped with brown. All birds molt, that is, change their feathers, at least once a year. The father birds are nearly always more gaudy when they are building their nest. You will notice too that hen birds are scarcely ever so gay as their mates. This is most likely because they sit on the nest and it would not do for them to be seen too easily. Linnits feed in big flocks in the winter. You may see them in the evening dropping down among the gorse and other bushes to sleep. It is sad that both the goldfinch and the linnet are caught and sold to sink in cages. This is why we have not nearly so many in England as we used to have. I hope you will look out for the nut hatch, a little bird with a short black beak, a blue gray, back and wings, and a pale yellow breast shaded with red. He is often seen in orchards and gardens in the autumn when the nuts are ripe. You may catch sight of him coming down a nut tree, head downwards. He sticks the nuts into the cracks of the trunk and hammers them with his beak to break them. You may sometimes find a little store of nuts which he has hidden at the foot of the tree. He feeds on other things besides nuts and beech mast, and he will peck at a piece of bacon in winter if you hang it out for him. You must listen for the black cap. You will hear him more easily than you will see him. He is a little dark gray bird with a black head and a pale gray breast, and sings almost as well as a nightingale. He comes back to England in April, and if you listen well, you may hear him practicing his song. He hides himself in a thick bush and begins gently in a low voice, singing over and over again till he gains strength. In a few days his voice is ready, and he trills out a wild, sweet song all the summer day, flitting from bush to bush as he sings. He feeds on insects and berries, and brings up four or five little ones in a lovely nest made of dry grass and spider's webs, and lined with horse hair. Then he flies away in October till the next spring. But he has been so often caught that he is not so common as he used to be. Then there is the little white throat, which creeps along almost everywhere under the hedges, and is often called the nettle creeper. He too is a brown-gray bird, with a little red at the tips of his feathers and on his breast. He hops and flies a little way as the hedge-barrow does, chattering all the time, and sometimes flying higher and higher and singing louder. He too comes in May and goes in October. There are two other little birds you may very likely see. One is the stone-chat, which lives on commons and sits on the top of the furs bushes. It is a small, brown-black bird with white markings and a rusty red breast. It cries, chat, chat, chat, and hides its nest so well in the gorse bushes that you will scarcely find one. The other is the little dipper, or water-usel, which hops about the stones in the bed of rapid streams and rivers. It feeds on insects and water snails. It is a black bird, not quite as big as a thrush, with a very short tail and a snowy white breast. It has a curious way of dipping its head down and flirting its tail. There is not room to tell about magpies or jays, but if you have any near you, you will know them already. Find out these small birds and any others in your neighborhood and try to know their nests and eggs. End of Chapter 11. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 12 of Birds of the Air by Arabella B. Buckley. Recorded for LibriVox.org. Chapter 12 Birds of Prey. We call birds of prey those which feed on the smaller animals, such as rabbits, mice, frogs, and snakes, as well as on other birds. The chief kinds in our country are eagles, falcons, hawks, and owls. If you live in the mountains of Scotland or the north of England, you may perhaps have seen an eagle. See picture page 51. But the birds of prey you are most likely to know are hawks and owls. I am sure that sometimes when you are in the fields, you must have seen a bird with long pointed wings and a tail like a fan hovering in the air. This is the kestrel or a common hawk. Country people call him the wind-hover. His wings beat the air so quickly that you can scarcely see them move, yet he keeps quite still in the same place. His bright eyes look eagerly on the ground. Now he darts a little up or down and floats along some distance. Now he hovers again, and all at once drops to the ground. He has seen a mouse in the grass and rises up within in his claws. Farmers often shoot kestrels because they steal young partridges and chickens, when they cannot find other food. But they are very useful in killing field mice, moles, beetles, and all kinds of vermin. If you cannot tame a young hawk nor find a dead one, you can see on page 51 and 61 how to know a bird of prey. Look at the long toes and sharp claws of the eagle or the hawk. They pierce the skin of any animal he seizes. His hooked beak is very strong and has sharp edges so that it cuts like shears. The upper half is pointed and hangs over the lower half. A few strong pecks with this cruel beak soon kill the tiny mouse or larger animals, which are swallowed whole or torn to pieces. After a little time the furry skins and the bones are thrown up in a ball. The feet and legs of a bird of prey are covered with scales so that when he is fighting he is not so much hurt by hard pecks. The kestrel's wings are strong and pointed and he can fly quickly or keep himself floating as he pleases. He is about as large as a wood pigeon. His back and wings are a bright brick red and his tail is gray, tipped with white, with a black band across. The long feathers of his wings are black while his breast is pale yellow. Another common hawk is the sparrow hawk, which has dark gray wings and a reddish brown breast with orange stripes. He does not often hover but glides along the hedges looking for birds and mice. He does more harm than the kestrel, for he often kills gang. But he is useful in destroying mice and insects and in preventing the small birds which eat the corn from becoming too numerous. The mother's sparrow hawk is much larger than the father. Owls, like hawks, have hooked beaks and long sharp claws, but their beak is not so strong and their feet are more useful for climbing. Their four toes stand three in front and one behind, like most birds, but they can turn back the outer front toe so as to have two in front and two behind, like the woodpecker. Notice, too, the difference in their eyes. A hawk has his eyes on the sides of his head, but the owl has his in front of his face like you or I. So when he hunts in the twilight, he can peer down at things close to him. He can make the pupil of his eye as large as the cat does so as to gather all the light there is. His feathers are so soft and downy that he makes very little noises as he flies, and he has large hidden ears with flaps over them and can hear the slightest sound. Some owls have ear-tuffs sticking up in the air like a cat's ear. The owl you hear so often crying, to who, to who, is the brown or tawny owl. He hunts in the early morning and late evening. In the daytime he hides in holes of the trees and in church towers. If he is driven into the sunlight he winks and blinks and cannot see clearly, but in the dusk or the moonlight he flies noiselessly along the hedges and catches mice, moles, frogs, and birds, swallowing the small one's hole and throwing back the feathers and skin in little balls. The barn owl is a much lighter bird than the brown owl. His back and wings are buff-color, and his breast and face are white. He cries, to it, to we, in a loud screech and is therefore often called the screech owl. He hides in the barn or in trees by day and hunts by night, feeding chiefly on mice. When he comes out by daylight the chaff inches and other little birds tease him, for they know he cannot see well. Compare a hawk and an owl. Notice the seer or piece of bare skins at the top of the beak, which all birds of prey have. It is partly covered by bristles in the owls. Try to draw the foot and beak of the eagle, pages 51 and 73. CHAPTER XIII. ROOKS AND THEIR COMPANIONS. You go and scare the rooks out of that field. They be eating all the seed. I heard a Devonshire farmer say to his boy one day. He was quite right. He had not sown his wheat deep enough, and the rooks were feeding on it. But some time after another farmer pointed to the rooks in his field, where their corn was green. See how they be pulling up the young oats, said he. And so they were. But when he looked at the plants which they had picked up, we found that each one had a place in the root where a grub had been living. This time the rooks had been doing useful work. Wireworms and other grubs eat away the roots of grass, corn, and turnips all across a field. When the rooks kill a few grubs, they often save the whole crop. Once a long time ago some Devonshire farmers gave a large reward for rooks' heads, thinking they did harm to the farms. All the rooks around were soon killed. But the farmers were sorry afterwards. During the next three years all their crops were destroyed by insects and grubs. They had to persuade some fresh rooks to build in their neighborhood to keep down the insects. No doubt rooks do some mischief, for they eat bird's eggs and newly sown corn, new potatoes, and green walnuts. They even sometimes pull grain out of the stacks when they are short of food. But they destroy so many wireworms and grubs, snails and slugs, maggots and insects of all kinds, that they do more good than harm. You all know the heavy-worrying cockchafer, which flops into your face in the evening. But perhaps you do not know that before he had wings he lived for three or four years underground, feeding on the roots of grass and corn. Rooks eat these cockchafer grubs wherever they can find them, and so save our crops. I hope you have rooks near you, for they are delightful to watch. When they build their huge nest high up in the forks of trees, they make a great deal of noise and bustle. The father-rook begins to fetch food for his mate, even before she lays her eggs, and feeds her all the time she is sitting. The old birds feed the young ones long after they are hatched. If you watch, you may see the young ones sitting on the edge of the nest, opening their mouths to be fed. Rooks like to build near old houses and use the same nest year after year. They will not allow strange rooks to join them. If the trees in which they build lose their leaves in winter, the rooks do not stay there long after the last young ones are able to fly. About August or September, they often go to the beach and pine woods to sleep, and do not come back to their rookery till the spring. But every now and then, on their way to and fro, they call it their rookery and look after their nests. Crows do not live together in numbers like rooks. They live in pairs and build their nest in the top of some high trees away from houses. They are more mischievous than rooks, for they feed on birds and young lambs, young pigeons, ducks, or chickens. You may tell a crow from a rook at a distance, because you very seldom see more than two together. When you can see them near, you will know them apart, because the rook, after he is a year old, has a bald patch on his head just above his beak, where the crow has feathers. Have you ever noticed how gravely a rook walks across a field? He does not hop like a thrush or a sparrow, but moves one foot after the other and gives a little jump every now and then. One or two always remain on the trees near to give notice of danger, and when these sentinels cry, call, call, the whole flock rises. They fly away, flapping their wings slowly, and drop down one by one in another field. A friend of mine who lives near a rookery says she often sees from her window one or two sentinel rooks go around every morning and wake up the others. And it is very funny to see how the lazy ones scramble up in a great hurry at the last so as to be in time to fly away with the rest. Though rooks will not allow another party of their own kind to join them, they allow starlings, jack-dolls, and field fairs to feed with them. A jack-doll moves much like a rook, though he is a more sprightly bird. He is smaller and has a gray patch on his head. The starling, C-Page 53, is a walking bird. Though his head and back are black, he has so many bright colors on the tips of his feathers that he does not look so dark as the rook or the jack-doll, but very bright and gay. I wonder why these birds like so much to follow the rooks. Perhaps it is because the rook has a keen scent and turns up the earth for food with his long beak. The jack-doll and starling only pick up what they find above ground, so when the rook turns up the earth they may get some of the food. Try to see a rook, a crow, a jack-doll, and a starling, a magpie, and a jay, and point out how you know them apart. CHAPTER XIV. WEB FOOTED BIRDS. Besides the birds which live in feet on the land, there are a great many which live mostly on the water. Some of these are called waders, and some are swimmers and have webbed feet. We read about two waders, the coot and the moorhen in Book Two. Today we will talk about the swimming birds. If you live by the seaside, you will know the gulls which float on the sea and often fly a long way up the rivers. Gulls come up the river temps as far as London and feed in the ponds up the parks. In the winter it is a pretty sight to watch them circling round and round and catching the food which people throw to them. You may have seen the cormorants, see page 38. Big black birds which fly heavily over the sea, with their long necks stretched out and their narrow wings beating the air. Then they settle on the water, and suddenly jump up and dive down head foremost, presently coming up with a fish, which it takes them often some time to swallow. But if you live in the country near a large lake or a river, you are more likely to see a curious little swimming bird called the little grebe or dab chick. This is a brown bird with a thin neck and head, which paddles about among the reeds on the bank of a river, or swims along quietly, diving down every now and then to catch water snails, fish, or weeds. You will have to move very quietly if you want to get near the dab chick, for it dives down at the least alarm and comes up a long way off, out of sight. If you have not seen any of these web-footed birds, nor even a wild duck, yet every child knows the tame duck, which lives in our farm yards. Our ducks and drakes were tamed long, long ago, from wild ducks, and are still very like them. Let us see what we can learn about a duck. First I want you to look at her as she waddles across the yard. Her feet have a skin between the three front toes, which joins them together. That is to say, she is web-footed. Now notice that, as she lifts her foot, the skin folds up like a fan, and when she puts her foot down, it spreads out again. When she reaches the pond, she glides into the water and begins to paddle, using one foot after the other, just as you do when you walk. In clear water, you can see that as she puts her foot forward, the skin shuts up, as it did when she walked. But when she puts it back and strikes the water, it opens and makes a paddle, and so she rows herself along. Her legs grow far back on her body, so that she can use them to twist and turn herself about. And she can tip her head and body down into the water to look for the water snails and tadpoles, while she paddles along with her tail up in the air. Next, notice how light her body is. It floats quite on the top of the water. This is partly because she has a layer of light fat under her skin, and partly because she has a thick covering of down under her feathers. There is a great deal of air caught in this down, and this makes her light. Do you know why her feathers do not get wet and draggled in the water? The reason is very curious. Her outer feathers are all smeared with oil, which she gets from a little pocket near her tail. Look at her when she comes out of the water. She presses her beak against her tail and then draws the feathers through the beak. When she has oiled them in this way, they are waterproof and keep the wet off her body. Next, watch her as she feeds. She goes, gobble, gobble through the mud, and often throws her head up to swallow something she has found. Her beak is broad and flat. It is hooked at the tip, but higher up it is covered with a soft skin full of nerves. With this skin, the duck feels what is in the mud, as well as if she saw it. The tip and edges of the beak are very horny and sharp, and both above and below it is lined with thin strips of horn. When she closes her beak, these strips fit into each other and make a strainer. With her sharp beak, she cuts the weeds or kills the snails. With the strainer, she sifts the mud and keeps the food in her mouth, forcing out the water with her thick tongue. Geese, swans, and all wild ducks have feet and beaks, much like our farmyard duck. You may have seen wild ducks in the lakes or rivers. The drake is a very handsome bird. His head and neck are a dark, shiny green. He has a white collar, and his breast is the color of a chest nut. His wings and back are partly brown and partly green. The four middle feathers of his tail are a glossy black and curl up. The others are gray, edged with white. When the wild drake changes his coat in June, he puts off this beautiful plumage and puts on a plain brown and gray suit, like the mother duck, till August. Then he begins to molt again, and in October is as gay as before. The cormorants and gulls have not beaks like the duck, for they do not grope in the mud. Their bills are sharp and strong for fishing, and their wings long for flying. The little dab chick, on the contrary, has short wings as he chiefly floats on the water. His beak is not very long, and it has no hook at the end. His feet are rather large, but the web is not wide as in the ducks. There are a great many other web-footed birds. Try if you can to find some. Examine a dead duck. Notice the webbed foot, the parts of the beak, the thick down, and the glossy oiled feathers not wedded in water. Draw the foot of any dead birds you can find. End of Chapter 14. This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 15 of Birds of the Air by Arabella B. Buckley. Recorded for LibriVox.org. Chapter 15. Bird Enemies. Almost every morning when I wake, I hear a curious cry. "'Tec, tec, tec!' in my garden. And I know that if I go out and look, I shall see the cat about somewhere. Sometimes many birds will be making the same cry altogether, and when the cat is on the lawn I have seen the swallow swoop down and peck at her back, and then rise up again before she can turn around. For the birds know very well that the cat is their enemy, and scold at her when she comes near, especially when the have young ones. I wonder if you have ever thought, as you lie snugly in bed, how many dangers there are for the little birds outside. The owl prowling along the hedge is on the lookout for sitting mothers and for young birds. The cat may climb the tree and put her sharp claws into the nest. Weasels and stoats are hunting about to catch any birds which are sleeping near the ground, or even in the trees, and snakes like eggs for their early breakfast as much as you or I do. The fox is a great enemy of the ground birds. Partridges, pheasants, and grouse dread a fox at night, as the fowls and ducks do in the farmyard. While in the daytime the hawk is a terror to all birds. The mother lark on her nest crouches down in the hope that the grass may hide her. The father lark, as he soars, rises or falls to try to escape. Other little songbirds flutter away to the bushes. Partridges run to cover, and pigeons hide in the wood when a hawk is near. All these are birds' natural enemies, for of course animals must kill their food, and we too kill birds to eat. But we need not destroy their nests, nor take their eggs for show, nor catch them, as many do, in nets to put them in cages, or to use their feathers for ornaments. Many birds, which were quite common 30 years ago, are rare now because such a number of eggs and birds have been taken. So laws have been made to protect the little songbirds, birds of prey, and sea birds, as well as partridges and pheasants. All over England people are now forbidden to shoot or snare any wild birds except on their own land, or to take their eggs between the 15th of March and 1st of August. This leaves the birds time to bring up their little ones, and there is a special list of birds which people may not disturb, even in their own garden, during this closed time. I am sure you will be glad to know that the lark is one of these birds. Then there are some parts of England where people are not allowed to take the eggs of wild birds at any time. These are places such as some of the Brods in Norfolk, and the Seashore in Slapton-Lee in Devonshire, where many birds breed. You cannot know all these places, but there is one very safe rule. Do not take any eggs, nor kill any birds. Then you are sure not to do wrong. Watch the birds in the garden and the fields and the woods. Learn to know where they build their nest round your house, and take care they are not disturbed. When you wake in the morning listen to their songs. You will soon know them, and know too when they are happy or when something is frightening them. Then notice what good work they do, eating the slugs and snails, the wireworms and grubs. You must drive them away when you see them eating your seeds or your young buds or the sprouting corn, but you can feed them in winter to make them your friends, and you will be surprised how much you can learn about their ways. End of Chapter 15 End of Birds of the Air by Arabella B. Buckley This recording is in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.