40 OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS. 
which we cannot even see. ‘These birds seem to be 
near-sighted, finding their dinner right under their eyes. 
We could not possibly see anything so near our faces. 
Then there are some of the birds who seem far- 
sighted, seeing food at a longer distance than we could, 
and darting for it as quick as a flash. 
It is a fact that most birds are both near-sighted and 
far-sighted. Their eyes are both telescopes and micro- 
scopes. Watch Madam Mocker or Mrs. Robin. She 
will see a grasshopper on the other side of the lawn, or 
a daddy-long-legs taking a sun-bath at the far end of 
the picket fence. The grasshopper and the daddy 
haven’t time to get up and be off before they are sur- 
prised by Madam Bird’s sharp bill. 
Birds, lke other people, must work if they will eat, 
and so they go in search of the cupboard or the cellar, 
and it is sometimes hard work to find them. The cup- 
board is anywhere in a dry place, and the door is never 
locked. The cellar is almost anywhere, too, where it 
is cool and damp, under the grass and chips and down 
in cracks between logs and boards. The food in the 
cellar is very unlike the food in the cupboard. 
There are some insects that never see the hght and 
cannot bear the sunshine. They are usually soft, tender 
things, and live where it is moist and cool. We call 
these the food in the bird’s cellar. There are other 
insects that love the dry air, where it is warm, the 
bark of trees and the hot sand, and these we call the 
food in the bird’s cupboard. 
