Bird Neighbors 



By Lyda May Briggs 



Now is the very best time of year for their human friends to express some 

 return interest in the bird neighbors which have been doing so much for mankind. 



A feast of cracked nuts, suet, sunflower seed, fruits and grains spread daily 

 at some community center easily accessible to all the bird folks, but protected from 

 their enemies, would be especially appreciated by the feathered residents, now that 

 food is scarce and hard to obtain, even by the most industrious workers. Some 

 of the friendliest of the little folks will come to a window-sill festal board where 

 you may observe their pleasure in your treat. 



Without rude intrusion or rough investigation to see if they are comfortable 

 in whatever homes they have found, you might provide some neighborhood shel- 

 ters where all the feathered habitants of woods and fields would be safe and 

 welcome. 



And then proceed to get acquainted with the little folks themselves. If you 

 care about such things you will find out in "Who Is Who, in Bird Land," that 

 many of your unassuming little neighbors have a pedigree of which any one might 

 be proud. 



Highest in point of development is the sialia sialis, one of the earliest comers 

 of the most exclusive of the blue-bloods. Their ancestors have never been accused 

 of stealing fruits or preying upon crops of any kind. These bluebirds subsist 

 entirely upon a diet of wild fruits and insect enemies of man. 



You may have been a little suspicious about the night hawks who go abroad 

 at hours when honest folks should be in bed. They are great sportsmen and such 

 expert aeronauts that no winged insect is safe from them. They contribute greatly 

 to the healthfulness of the section where they live by disposing in a most effective 

 and hygienic manner of several species of mosquitoes, among them the anopheles, 

 the transmitter of malaria. 



Mrs. American Barn Owl is quite content with her homely name, satisfying 

 her artistic nature with a harmonious costume of buff, overlaid with grayish, 

 spotted with white and dotted with black. She is the radical leader of all pro- 

 gressive movements among her sisters, refuses to make a nest and goes out at 

 night unaccompanied. She maintains her independent economic status in the civic 

 plan of the bird republic by ridding the community of meadow-mice, rats, beetles, 

 shrews, gophers and other undesirable settlers in the fields. 



Not anything you read or hear about these folks will be half so interesting or 

 convincing as what you may find out for yourself by respectful observation. 

 Especially, if you will look for good in both permanent and migrating neighbors. 



Even the common crows, the blackest of them all, who have had their pictures 



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