224 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON 



tion of the systems of Pestalozzi and Froebel to encourage 

 the birds to come to the schoolroom as object-lessons, or as 

 teachers from the woods and fields. Have bird-houses in 

 the schoolyard, and let it be a marked day when the pro- 

 tected young birds leave their nests. 



Let the church teach this affection for the inhabitants 

 of the air, as did Francis of Assisi, who made the birds his 

 brothers; Father Taylor, of the Old North Square, Boston, 

 about whose head the pigeons used to flock; and Phillips 

 Brooks, whose church-tower is still full of wings. The He- 

 brews had this sense of what was due to the song wings, and 

 the swallow found a " nest for the young " at the sacred altar. 



5. Study the birds that protect trees and crops; give 

 the crows and blackbirds their true place in nature. 



6. Study birds that see in the night. Let the study not 

 be confined to day-birds, but to those that protect crops by 

 night seeing, by destroying aerial insects — the night-hawk, 

 the night- jay, the owls and bats, as if the bat were a bird. 



Among these are the chimney-swallow that sleeps at 

 noonday, the whippoorwill of song, the herons of many 

 kinds. The mocking-bird is the prima donna of the night, 

 and sings all songs in one. 



RUSTIC BIRD-HOMES 



In England bird-boxes make cheerful the trees and 

 hedgerows around English cottages. In New England in 

 the last centuries, " martin-boxes " or bird-homes caused 

 the glimmerings of happy wings in the dooryard trees. 

 Holes for swallows and " St. Martin's birds " were cut 

 under the eaves on the sunny side of the farmhouse, and 

 perches were placed under them. The true spring began 



