BILLS OF FARE. 27 



The people who put out the bones would be glad 

 enough to welcome them, and from what I know of 

 the Chickadee's manners, I think he would be the last 

 to treat them rudely, if they came ; but yet they are 

 never seen clinging to the bone and picking at the 

 frozen scraps. 



To ask a hungry Creeper to have a piece of gristle 

 would be as cruel as the Stork was to his friend 

 Reynard. No one is quicker than a Creeper when it 

 is a question of prying a canker-worm's eggs out of 

 a crevice in the bark, but he cannot use his slender 

 bill for such rough work as hacking frozen meat. 



Up in Vermont is another family who spread a 

 table for their bird friends. The bone hung up by 

 the first family serves the Chickadee for a chair, a 

 table and food also ; but the birds which visit this 

 family eat a different food, which is spread out for 

 them on a board nailed to the top of a post. They 

 have different bills from those of either the bone- 

 pickers or' the Creepers. 

 . " Finches " do you ask } " Seed eaters } " 



Four or five different kinds of Finches come to this 

 board. Tree Sparrows, Snowbirds, and occasionally 

 some very pretty rosy-colored birds called Redpoll 

 Linnets. If you were near enough to the table on 

 which the food is spread, you could hear the seeds 

 crack in their strong bills, and though their bills are 



