HOME NATURE-STUDY COURSE. 



BIRD STUDY. 



Bird study is of the utmost importance from every point of view. 

 First, birds are of the greatest economic importance and whoever 

 owns a farm, garden or orchard must learn to know the birds and to 

 deal with them intelligently, if he would reap from his possessions 

 the highest possible financial returns. Second, birds are most 

 interesting and delightful creatures to study, as they have attained 

 a degree of development in their habits, especially as to migration 

 and nest building, which seems to us little short of the miraculous. 

 Third, many of them are exquisite in color, graceful in form and their 

 songs delight the ear and cheer the spirit. It is, therefore, a great 

 addition to the interest and pleasure gained from walks in the fields 

 and woods, if we know by sight and song a number of these little 

 friends in feathers. 



One of the ideals to be attained by the teacher of nature-study is 

 to cultivate the child's interest in the life of the world at large by 

 studying at first what is most familiar in his every -day life. The 

 first nature-study lesson, beginning at the point of the child's greatest 

 interest, should be like a pebble dropped in the pond and create 

 wider and ever widening waves of interest. For this reason the 

 greater the interest and pleasure of the first lessons the wider the 

 results; therefore, birds which so charm even the youngest child 

 offer a most felicitous introduction to the study of nature's ways. 



One of the mistakes often made in beginning the study of birds with 

 small children, is in placing stress upon learning by sight and name 

 as many species of birds as possible. The young child is more inter- 

 ested in what a bird does and how it does it than in knowing the 

 names of many birds. To start a child in bird study and teach him 

 that the bird is especially fitted for its life and that its form is de- 

 termined by what it does, there is no better subjects for study than 

 the chicken and the duckling or gosling. These are close at hand 

 and may be studied in the home or in the schoolroom ; and by begin- 

 ning thus and learning about the form and habits of these interesting 

 domestic birds, the child gets an understanding of the needs and of 

 the lives of other birds. 



For the following lesson, a chick should be stvidied by the pupils, 

 letting them answer the questions after they have had time to observe. 

 The ideal way for conducting this lesson would be to have a chick in 



