THE EXTENSION 21 
Date when first seen. 
Date of departure. 
Where seen. 
Time and place of nesting. 
Food. 
Each child may have an individual calendar, or a large 
one may be kept for the whole school. 
Bird List. Each school may also make a list of all 
birds. found in their locality during the year. 
Food chart. It is hoped that a number of separate 
food charts will also be prepared from observations made 
by the children. These charts may be put in some such 
simple form as the following: 
Name of bird. 
Kind of food eaten. 
Food found where. 
Food given young birds. 
Economie value of food eaten. 
In this connection the older children may make a 
special study of those birds which are complained of in 
their locality. Various methods of protecting crops may 
also be tried. (See Methods of Attracting Birds.) Work 
of this kind can be made of real, practical value, for the 
harm done by birds to fruit and other crops can often be 
traced to a scarcity of water or their natural food supply, 
at that particular season. In many eases, birds which are 
destructive to certain crops are, on the other hand, among 
the valuable insect and weed destroyers. 
Children will be interested in making collections of 
insects and weed seeds eaten by different birds. 
SPECIAL POINTS TO EMPHASIZE IN BIRD STUDY. 
Economic value of birds. In the higher grades special 
emphasis should be placed on the economic value of birds 
to the farmer and fruit grower. If bird study in our 
schools is to be of practical value, the foundation must be 
laid on something besides sentiment. 
Individual work by children. Above all, get the child- 
ren to doing individual work, and making original obser- 
vations, for this is the basis of all really successful work 
in bird study. One discovery made by the boy himself is 
worth any number of facts taken from bocks, or told him 
by the teacher. 
At first it will be necessary to caution the children not 
to jump at conclusions, but to be accurate in their obser- 
