BIRD 



732 



BIRD 



eggs; and in some way or other these must 

 be kept warm until the little ones appear. 

 Sometimes the eggs are laid in warm sand or 

 rotting vegetation, but the nesting birds brood 

 their eggs, and keep them warm by their 

 bodies. Usually, the mother bird performs this 

 act of service, while her mate brings her food 

 or cheers her with his song, but in some species 

 the father bird takes his turn at brooding the 

 eggs. With most of the smaller birds it takes 

 from two to three weeks for the little chicks 

 to mature and break from their shells. The 

 number of eggs varies from two to a score, 

 seeming to be in proportion to the dangers 

 which the young are to meet; the number is 

 practically the same at every sitting of each 

 species. See EGG. 



With the lower orders of birds, such as the 

 chickens and geese, and other water fowl, the 

 young come from the shells clothed with a 

 complete suit of down, and are able to take 

 partial care of themselves. Within a few hours 

 after their 'appearance the fluffy chicks run 

 about searching for bugs or grain, though they 

 still have to be kept warm by the mother at 

 night. The chicks of the higher orders of birds, 

 however, are very helpless when they first come 

 from their shells as helpless as is a tiny 

 kitten or a baby. They are naked of feathers, 

 scrawny and apparently "all mouth"; and the 

 frequent saying that "all young things are 

 beautiful" certainly does not hold true of 

 young birds. The parent birds show the most 

 unselfish devotion to their helpless little ones, 

 guarding the nest from enemies at the risk of 

 their own lives, keeping the nestlings warm at 

 night, and above all things providing them with 

 the incredible amount of food which they need 

 for growth (see subhead Food, below). When 

 the time comes for the little birds to fly, the 

 parents teach them to do so by calling to them 

 and withholding food from them, thus inducing 

 the young to leave the nest. Few members 

 of the animal kingdom show more parental' 

 affection than do the birds. In some cases it 

 is but a few weeks that the little ones are 

 so dependent, but with some of the larger birds 

 this period may be almost a year. 



Food. The food of birds varies according 

 to the species, for like the four-footed animals 

 they are divided into two classes those which 

 eat animal food and those which eat vegetable. 

 Many birds, however, feed on grain and insects 

 indiscriminately. No bird has teeth, but the 

 beak of each species is fitted to handle the 

 kind of food which it eats, and its digestive 



organs are peculiarly adapted to treating food 

 that has not been chewed. When the food is 

 swallowed it finds lodgment first in the crop, 

 a large sack at the bottom of the gullet. Here 

 it is soaked and softened for some time, and 

 is then passed on to the gizzard, a kind of 

 stomach, with exceedingly strong, muscular 

 walls and tough, wrinkled lining. Here the 

 food is ground fine by vigorous rubbing, aided 

 by small stones which have been swallowed by 

 the bird. The flesh-eating birds have smaller 

 gizzards, with thinner muscular coats, than have 

 the grain-eaters, for the softer food does not 

 need nearly so much grinding as do the hard- 

 skinned seeds and grains; and in some species 

 of flesh-eaters there is no gizzard at all. 



Like larger animals which live upon flesh, 

 the carnivorous, or flesh-eating, birds are strong, 

 fierce and unsociable. They do not live in 

 friendly colonies, as do the cheerful and harm- 

 less grain-eaters, but withdraw for the most 

 part into some secluded region of forest or 

 rock. 



It is seldom that birds, during their waking 

 hours, are to be seen at rest. They are con- 

 stantly flying about, darting from one place to 

 another, not at random but with a very definite 

 purpose to find food. For so much food do 

 their active bodies, high temperature and rapid 

 circulation demand that they must be eating 

 most of the time. To anyone who has watched 

 fledglings being fed it must have seemed incred- 

 ible that such tiny bodies could possibly absorb 

 so much nourishment, for it is an actual fact 

 that these little birds regularly eat more than 

 their own weight of food in the course of a day. 

 Most young birds, even those which later 

 prefer seeds and grain, are fed on insect food, 

 and as they appear when insect pests are at 

 the very worst, man is usually much benefited 

 by their hearty appetites. 



Relation to Man. It is this enormous quan- 

 tit}' of food required by birds which makes the 

 various wild species of such value to the 

 farmer. Not many years ago the farmers were 

 inclined to look upon nearly all birds as pests, 

 because a few of them stole grain or nipped 

 the cherries and blackberries, but to-day there 

 exists a far truer appreciation of the part they 

 really play in industrial life. For the insects 

 upon which birds feed so voraciously are in 

 many instances the very worst plant enemies 

 the enemies which each year result in a loss 

 of hundreds of millions of dollars to the 

 farmers. This loss would be much greater 

 without the services of the birds, and careful 



