Among the birds: A series of sketches for young folks, illustrating the domestic life of our feathered friends
Book Description
This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1868. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... OUR BIRDS IN WINTER. CHAPTER I. IT was toward the close of a warm afternoon in February, that a small party of birds were observed fluttering among the trees and branches of an old orchard that st...
MoreThis historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1868. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... OUR BIRDS IN WINTER. CHAPTER I. IT was toward the close of a warm afternoon in February, that a small party of birds were observed fluttering among the trees and branches of an old orchard that stood on the southern slope of a hill in Eastern Massachusetts. The weather for the past few days had been warm and genial, and the snow had melted from little hillocks and rocks in many places, exposing to the gaze their surfaces covered with short grass, weeds, or gray lichens and moss. This orchard that the birds were visiting had been much neglected by its thriftless owner, and the limbs and branches were covered with moss and loose bark that furnished comfortable hiding-places for noxious insects, and most convenient resting-places possible for their larvae, and for the deposit of their eggs. [821 The birds moved briskly among the branches, hanging sometimes head downwards, peering in the crevices in the bark, and pecking the moss from the limbs, among which were lurking the injurious grubs, or hidden the eggs of moths, that in early spring would hatch into caterpillars. The movements of the birds were accompanied at quick intervals by cheerful scraps of song, and the whole band was altogether as merry a one as could be well gathered together at once. When I say that nearly all these birds were of a brown and slate color on the back, and of a fawn color and white beneath, each with a black cap that enveloped its whole head, and with black intelligent eyes, that were constantly moving about, sparkling with genuine good nature and vivacity, my readers will doubtless recognize at once those familiar birds, the chick-a-dces. The remainder of the party, that were not clothed in this manner, were of a light greenish olive above, and yellowish white beneath, with a crown of...
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