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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 Excerpt: ...find many stories about the strange food or feeding habits of birds. First, however, look about you, if you can, and find out what the birds that are your own neighbors eat, and how they get ... More

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 Excerpt: ...find many stories about the strange food or feeding habits of birds. First, however, look about you, if you can, and find out what the birds that are your own neighbors eat, and how they get it. Take the common birds, the Robin, the Chipping Sparrow, the Kingbird, and the Gull, and watch them till you see them getting and eating their dinner. Then you will be all the more interested in the interesting stories you will find in the books. You will learn, too, what patience and sharp sight people come to have who watch birds and find out all their secrets. WHEN A BIRD CHANGES HIS CLOTHES. T0 you know how important the masts of a sailing ship are? If they are broken, the ship is help less. It drifts about wherever the wind blows it. A bird's wing and tail feathers are as important for its safety as the mast and sails of a ship. The strong, powerful quill feathers enable it to fly rapidly through the air to get its food and to avoid its enemies. It is important that the feathers of both wings should be uninjured, for the bird would be unable to guide its flight if one wing were much less strong than the other. Feathers get worn by use, some even get broken, and if the bird could not replace them it would have hard work, after a year or two, to make the old weatherworn ones do their work. Nature, however, provides the birds with a new suit of clothes every year. After the young are hatched, when the old birds no longer need their swiftness and strength to get the daily food for their children, the feathers of almost all birds begin to drop out; not at once, for that would leave the bird naked and helpless, but gradually and evenly, one from one side, then one from the other. As fast-as the feathers drop out others grow out to take their places, and in a month or ...

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