220 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 



This is the a^e of birds. They outnumber, in species, all 

 other air-breathing vertebrates put together. Doubtless, 

 their ability to fly and there! >y to find food an'd to escape 

 enemies lias had much to (1( ) with this prcponderence. Hardly 

 any other li\-ing things have acquired such power of flight, 

 and no others have established regular seasonal 

 migi'ations between summer and winter homes. 

 A hundred or more species may be found in any 

 good locality in the course of a year — more than 

 half of them, song-birds. A few are pennanent 

 residents ; a few are winter visitors from the far 

 north; many are transient visitors that winter 

 south of us and summer north of us, and a sub- 

 stantial ntmiber, including all the song-birds that 

 we value most higWy, are summer residents. 

 These return to us e\'er3^ spring and settle and 

 build nests and sing and rear their broods. Who 

 does not feel a thrill of pleasure at the return 

 of the bluebird, that soft-voiced harbinger of 

 spring ? 



Wild birds they are, yet they do not mind our 



presence if we treat them well. And a number 



of the most charming little birds will settle near 



us and remain with us year after year if we 



provide them suitable places for nest builcHng, located in 



safe and congenial surroundings. 



It is a ]:)leasant aspect of evolution to contemplate that the 

 birds we like best — the birds that sing and that fashion beauti- 

 ful nests and rear their young with most parental care — are the 

 ones that have been and are most successful in the race of life. 

 While a number of the smaller birds look much alike on 

 first approach, each species has its distinguishing peculiarities 

 that a little careful obsen^ation will reveal — peculiarities of 

 color and attitude, of flight and of notes, of haunts and of 



Fig. 85. 

 Simple types 

 of home- 

 made nest- 

 ing boxes 

 for birds. 



