66 Bird -Lore 



AN OBSERVATION AT FIRST HAND 



1 am writing to tell you about a bird I have seen. One night after school I 

 was playing in the yard and a Cedar Waxwing lit on the ground l)y a stone. 

 I thought it seemed very tame and so I tried to see how close I could come to it 

 before it flew. So I went up to it. It did not seem afraid, so I picked it up in 

 my hands. It did not struggle. I carried it into the old wash-house in a basket 

 and fed it on seeds. It got so it flew all around and then I carried it across the 

 road and let it go and it flew away. — Leonice Hill, AshviUe, Maine. 



[Perhaps this bird was exhausted from a storm, or was not well, for even birds can 

 be ill, or it may have been a young bird, strayed from its mates. Cedar Waxwings arc 

 accustomed to go in flocks, usually small but sometimes, as has been lately reported, in 

 numbers as large as twenty-five or thirty or more. — .\. H. W.] 



AN EXERCISE IN BIRD-STUDY 



Dear Jerome: 



In the paper there was a notice to feed the birds. There are a great many 

 birds in your woods, and when you go to the camp you could feed all the wild 

 birds. You ought to read the story of ^^ Freckles'' and do the same as he did. 

 When I go out there we will take a walk in the woods and see the birds. The 

 snow is very deep out there, and the birds can't find anything to eat. I will 

 write and tell you about our bird-club sometime. — Earle Tompkins, East- 

 hampton, Mass. 



[The teacher who sent this article, simply asked her class to write something about 

 birds, after reading the scene in" Freckles" which describes his interest in birds. She writes: 

 "In addition to the club in my own school, I have been starting bird-study in tlie other 

 public schools of the town. As an experiment, we took only grades 5 to 7 and have 

 ten clubs. The Superintendent has furnished a substitute for my room, and I have 

 done it without extra pay, for the experience. I hope sometime to get into this work 

 altogether." Again, a teacher who is full of enthusiasm and a desire to make bird-study, 

 not only successful, but general in the middle grades, shows how possible it is to i)ul 

 this study on a practical and, at the same time, pedagogical basis. It is much to be 

 desired that more experienced teachers can go into the work of organizing bird-clubs.— 

 A. H. W.] 



MAKING BIRD-BOXES 



I am going to make a bird-box for the l)irds. When the cold weather comes 

 they like to have a house to go into. In our room we have made forty-one bird- 

 boxes. Many boys and girls have made one, and they have put up forty-one 

 bird-boxes. In our room some of the boys and girls have joined the Audubon 

 Society. — Edith Strigel, Lawndale, Fa. 



[This brief chronicle of work accomplished suggests the cjuestion of how many 

 birds seek bird-boxes as places of shelter during the time when they arc not nesting. 

 Who can answer this question from personal observation? — .\. H. W.] 



