50 OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS. 
get by paying for them or shooting them,— birds so 
small that it takes a whole one to make a good mouth- 
ful. 
We do not think it wrong to have a chicken dinner, 
or even a quail or pigeon, if we are sick; because it 
takes only a bird or two to make enough. But we do 
think it is wrong to take many happy lives just to give 
one person a dinner, when he could make as good a 
meal on beefsteak as on a dozen little birds. 
Birds have so many enemies that they hardly ever 
die of old age. We ought to think of this, and do 
what we can to prolong their lives. There is hardly a 
spot on earth so desolate that birds are not found there. 
COAPTER® 2c. 
SOME BIRDS WITH A BAD NAME. 
A GOOD name is what we all want in this world. 
We like to have people speak well of us behind our 
backs. There are a few birds which have a bad name. 
Sometimes they deserve what is said of them, and some- 
times they are quite innocent. It is always well for 
us to find out for ourselves if what we hear about birds 
is quite true. i 
There is a king-bird or bee-martin. Farmers think 
him a very wicked little fellow, catching the bees on 
the wing and eating greedily whole swarms of them. 
