TAMING AND FEEDING BIRDS 



353 



being swallowed alive. It is a rare lesson in gentleness 

 to capture a young bird without frightening it, but if 

 successfully done, your bird is practically tame. If even 

 a young bird is caught after a severe chase, it is likely to 

 be days, weeks, and even months, before the effects of 

 its fright can be obliterated, 

 and I have known one case 

 of a young robin that had not 

 recovered from the effect of 

 such treatment in connec- 

 tion with its capture after 

 more than a year. 



I have one reason for 

 mentioning these facts. It 

 is not that I wish children 

 to catch and tame birds to 

 keep in cages. One tame 

 bird at liberty about a home 

 is worth a hundred in cap- 

 tivity. The reason is, in 

 a word, that thousands of 

 fledgelings yearly leave the 

 nest a day or two before 

 their wings are quite strong enough to fly, and fall a 

 prey to cats. No work in the entire nature course is 

 more valuable either in humanizing influences for the 

 children or in practical service in fostering and increas- 

 ing our valuable bird life than this tiding of the little 

 orphans over these first hard days out of the nest. 

 With our rapidly decreasing bird life, the children 

 owe this work to the birds, to the community, and to 



FIG. 141. A GOOD ORPHAN'S HOME 

 FOR A DAY OR Two UNTIL THE 



WINGS GROW STRONG 

 (Photograph by Myron W. Stickney) 



