3IO 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



the pleasure that I have had in taming 

 wild birds. Some will never trust you, 

 but those that do trust become perfect- 

 ly fearless and when in trouble will 

 come for help. 



My most remarkable experience of 

 that kind I told to my brother who 

 used the incident in his "Nature's Ser- 

 ial." I knew where most of the birds 

 around my old home on the Hudson 

 had their nests. One day, while I was 

 planting flowers near the house, a pair 

 of robins came close over my head with 

 cries of distress. As I sprang up from 

 the ground, the birds flew to a lilac 

 bush not far away. Two catbirds also 

 flew in that direction, giving their call 

 of alarm. I ran to the bush, opened 

 the thick clump and saw a black snake 

 crawling up the main trunk to the nest, 

 where were four little nearly fledged 

 birds. I called to my brother John 

 telling him to hurry to the rescue. He 

 seized an old-fashioned gun that we 

 kept to scare away crows from a corn- 

 field, shot the snake through the head 

 before it reached the little birds, and 

 carried it away. 



I returned to my flower bed near 

 w^hich were many trees and shrubs. 

 Soon several birds, including the rob- 

 ins, perched on those trees and shrubs 

 close to me and isang as long as I re- 

 mained. If they were not saying, 

 "Thank you," in their way, what were 

 they doing? I suppose my critic will 

 not believe this story but there are 

 other members of my family who saw 

 the whole episode. 



Edward used the incident as he 

 wished for his story in "Nature's Ser- 

 ial," on page 276. That was written 

 some years after the event and when 

 I referred to the gratitude the birds 

 had expressed by their songs he said, 

 "I am sorry I forgot that part for I 

 would have used it." 



Yours sincerely. 



Mary A. Roe. 



Birds Responding in Song to Human 

 Audiences. 



New York City. 

 To the Editor : 



In reply to yours as to whether birds 

 sing especially for a human audience, 

 all I can say is that when birds are in 

 the humor for song they are very easily 

 stimulated to it by noises which do not 



alarm them. For example, a turkey 

 gobbler will gobble when you whistle 

 to him ; canary birds are often made to 

 sing by whistling to them ; and I have 

 seen a canary stimulated to song each 

 time a sewing machine began to run. 

 I have frequently induced the chicka- 

 dee to come and sing by whistling its 

 spring notes, and, in England, I have 

 aroused the nightingale to music by 

 going to its thicket and whistling shril- 

 ly. I might add that I have also started 

 the nightingale by throwing a brickbat 

 into its copse This is a well-known 

 trick among boys in the south of Eng- 

 land. 



Yours sincerely, 



Ernest Thompson Seton. 



An Idiosyncratic Rooster. 



You are right in regard to the in- 

 dividualty of birds. Recently I have 

 been interested in a rooster that we 

 have, a Rhode Island Red. Among 

 thirty or forty other roosters, he is the 

 only one that pays the slightest atten- 

 tion to me when I go into the yard. 

 But if he sees me anywhere on the 

 premises, he runs to me with a curious 

 sidewise gait and a curious clucking 

 noise which I translate as "goo-goo." 

 He immediately begins to scratch dil- 

 igently at my feet, as if to show off 

 one of his accomplishments, at the same 

 time making the clucking sounds that 

 he uses to attract the attention of the 

 hens when he has found something 

 good to eat. He is an idiosyncratic 

 rooster, and I am inclined to think that 

 if he keeps on at this rate he will never 

 be served up in a potpie, but will die 

 of old age. 



Why Do Hens Act in This Way? 



The tangles of nature are frequently 

 hard to disentangle, and the methods 

 hard to explain. In the home. Birchen 

 Bower, at ArcAdiA we have for some 

 two weeks past been accustomed to 

 have oranges for breakfast and to use 

 a spoon to hollow out each half sphere. 

 These empty, hollow skins have been 

 thrown into the garbage pail, and from 

 it the contents transferred to the so- 

 called sun parlor of the chicken house 

 where the hens enjoy the warmth of 

 the sun during the cold winter days. 

 Nearly all of these hollow hemispheres 

 are carried by the hens into the dark- 



