71-2 Rural School Leaflet 



spring migration intelligently. Who will be the first one to see a grackle, 

 a cowbird, a red- winged blackbird, a bobolink? Ask your teacher to 

 keep on the blackboard a record of all the pupils who see the first birds. 

 Perhaps some night before you go to sleep, you will hear the wild geese 

 honking. This is a very wonderful sound and I would not have you miss 

 it. Commit to memory what Burroughs has said of wild geese on page 

 205, and the stanzas of poetry about the bobolink on page 206. Ask your 

 father or your mother to read aloud to ycu " The Birds of Killingworth," 

 by Longfellow, and learn why 



"A new heaven bent over a new earth 

 Amid the sunny farms of Killingworth." 

 And we must not forget the great plant world that announces the 

 coming of spring. The hills begin to change color; the twigs take on 

 richer tints and shades; the pussy willows find their way to the teacher's 

 desk; skunk cabbage blossoms; and such is the way of the wood, that 

 perhaps hepaticas will greet us before the snow has gone. 



BIRD STUDY 



In the study of birds let us remember the following: 



We need the birds and the birds need us. Students of the subject 

 tell us that birds have prevented invasions of aphids, caterpillars, potato 

 beetles, cutworms, white grubs, and many other pests. We need more 

 birds on the farm, for locusts destroy our wheat, wire worms destroy our 

 com, caterpillars destroy our trees and fruit, and other insects do much 

 harm. 



Do all that you can to attract the birds to your farms and gardens. 

 Build bird houses, hang a meat bone or some suet on a tree, and scatter 

 seeds on the snow; protect the birds from cats, particularly at nesting 

 time. 



Find out all you can about some bird that has a special interest for 

 you — the bobolink, perhaps. Then when you see it again this year, 

 you will be ready to make some observations of it that you never made 

 before. In order to be a real naturalist one must study the out-of-door 

 things, not books; but every naturalist will be helped in his study by 

 reading what other naturalists have learned. 



Look over the list of the birds that will come back in the spring, and 

 decide which one you want most to see. When will it come? How 

 much can you learn about it before it comes? 



The bobolink will be late, arriving in May. You must try to see him 

 this year. Ask your teacher to read you the poem " Robert O'Lincoln," 

 by William Cullen Bryant. 



