146 BIRD WORLD. 



the buds and berries grew, and what kind of wind 

 and sky meant rain. 



But, after all, the Grouse w^ould not have been the 

 best teacher of geography the birds could have found 

 for their school. He knew the swamp and the woods 

 around it, but a journey to the next swamp would 

 have seemed to him quite a long one. 



In fact, you remember, he rather prided himself on 

 being a stay-at-home, and when his friend the Oven- 

 bird told him about the beautiful southern forests, I 

 can fancy him listening politely, but not caring much 

 about them. 



The Ovenbird would make a better teacher, would 

 he not ? Think, for a moment, what he sees every 

 year of his life : the dry oak woods of the north are 

 his home in the summer ; he knows them almost as 

 well as the Grouse does, and can find his way about 

 from the little brook where the fat spiders live, to the 

 dry bank where his mate has built her little oven. 

 Then in October he spends a few days in New York 

 State, flies across the broad Hudson, and then on to 

 the shores of Chesapeake Bay. A week or two later 

 he would be taking his way over the fallen needles of 

 the great Georgia pines, and the next week watching 

 the alligators in a Florida swamp. 



Here a few of his friends think it warm enough 

 to spend the winter, but he flies over the warm Gulf 



