CIVILIZED BIRDS. 9 
CHAPTER. Til. 
CIVILIZED BIRDS. 
IN new parts of the country we do not find so many 
birds living near houses as we find in older towns. 
Where there is much wooded or uncultivated land for 
them to live and nest in, the birds prefer to stay at 
some distance from us. But after the fields are all 
ploughed, and the trees cut down, they become civilized 
and learn to love our gardens and barns and houses. 
“wild” or “civilized,” just as 
We speak of birds as 
we speak of the races of men. The birds in our yard 
are civilized. ‘They will eat cooked food if we give 
it to them. They will bathe in a tub, if it is handy, 
as if it were a brook in the woods. They will nest in 
cosey nooks about the home in the vines and under the 
barn eaves, or in little houses which we build for them 
and set up on poles or in the arbors. They will follow 
the furrow which the plough makes, looking for worms, 
and will help themselves to our fruit without waiting 
for an invitation. 
Many of them soon learn to prefer the barn-yard to 
the field, and will hop about with the chickens under 
the horse’s feet. The sparrows and towhees come every 
day when the cow eats her pail of bran. They gather 
about close to her head and watch for her to finish her 
meal, very much as you have seen one dog watch 
