fi OF BIRDS. 



of spring in times long past? Wlio hears the song of the 

 blue bird or the bob-o-link without a delightful reminiscenoe 

 of school-boy days, ready to repeat with Wordsworth : 



" And I can listen to thee yet, 



And lie npon the plain ; 

 And listen till I do beget 



That golden time again." 



Hence it is that, although all birds are interesting, the 

 birds of our own country are most attractive. We have 

 marked their ways ; we have watched them building their 

 nests and rearing their young; we have listened to their 

 ringing notes when "creeping like snail unwillingly to 

 school," and longing for a ramble in the fields. They are 

 associated with all our rural pleasures, all our holiday 

 sports ; and we love them for their being indissolubly linked 

 in our memories with a happy past. 



The characteristics which distinguish birds from the other 

 olaases of vertebrated animals, are that they lay eggs, from 

 which their young are hatched by what is called incubation ; 

 their skins are covered with feathers, and their jaws are 

 homy, without teeth. Their blood is warm and oironlfttef 



