EARNING A TITLE 9 



and drought and cyclones or high, raging winds 

 were unknown. As I recall, there were small 

 flocks of birds for every one that is seen at the pres- 

 ent time. We were taught to love the song birds 

 for their beauty, their music, and the likeness of 

 their life processes to ours. We were told that 

 we must not harm a bird's nest because it would 

 break the little mother bird's heart; but no one 

 ever particularly impressed it upon us to protect 

 them because the berry and fruit crops would 

 fail if we did not. My father was the only person 

 I ever heard mention the subject in my childhood. 

 The birds' work as insect exterminators was not 

 generally realized or taught at that time, while 

 the spraying of fruit trees was unknown. When 

 the trees had been pruned and the trunks given 

 a thorough coat of whitewash, everything that was 

 known to do for their care had been done; and so 

 bounteous and fine were the fruit crops in my 

 father's orchard that the whitewash was not used 

 there, but I did see it in neighbouring orchards and 

 dooryards. 



I distinctly remember the swarms of birds that 

 flocked over the cherry trees when the fruit was 

 ripe, and the Babel of song that went up from the 

 orchard, while the field birds were so numerous 

 that we were always allowed to take the eggs from 

 any quail nest we found, provided we first used 

 the precaution of raking one egg from the nest 

 with a long stick to see to what stage of incubation 



