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Bird - Lore 



this Sparrow late winter and early spring food, a reason why we find the first 

 Song Sparrows in the alders. This is the time that the tree-trunk birds are 

 making their best records — the Downy and Hairy Woodpecker and the Nut- 

 hatches — yet it is the time that the casual and theoretical bird-lover and pro- 

 tectionist sees the least to record in the great outdoors. Why is it? Because so 

 many things born of impulse and the fad-following spirit, instead of true interest, 

 do not survive their first real winter test, and never a one of these reads even 

 a single chapter in The Birds' Book oj Snow. They build some impossible 

 bird-houses very late in the spring and place them as near together as fiats 

 in a tenement; they may throw out handfuls of crumbs and soon give up 

 even this feeding because, with improper food, they do not at once attract 

 tame Chickadees, and then they declare 'there are no birds in our region 

 to be protected,' simply because they do not feel the responsibility that 

 goes with success in attracting and loving anything animate. 



YOUNG MOURNING DOVES, FULLY FEATHERED AND CAPABLE OF QUICK, STRONC; 



FLIGHT. BUT STILL TOO INEXPERIENCED TO FEAR THE PH0T0(;RAPHER 



Photographed by Dr. R. W. Homan, Webster City, Iowa 



