12 BIRDS OF THE WEST 



THE FOOD OF BIRDS. 



The problem of bread- winning ? It is the same mighty problem 

 for bird, beast, fish, or man. It prescribes to each of them where he 

 shall make his home; whether or not he shall migrate, and if he 

 does, it names for him the very time and place of his migration. 



With birds, it largely determines the size and shape of their 

 bills, the shape and character of their feet, the length of their 

 wings, the shape of their tails, the color of their plumage and the 

 number of their eggs. 



There is a little bird known as the red cross-bill, and a Ger- 

 man fable says that the little fellow twisted its bill by trying to pull 

 the nails from the Savior 's cross, and that in doing so, its breast was 

 reddened by the Savior's blood. Science, that so often spoils a 

 pretty story, says that the crossing of its bill has resulted from 

 its fondness for the seeds of the pine cone. I remember the first 

 one that I ever saw. I was so sorry for him because he had twisted 

 his little bill. 



Now, the butcher needs different tools from those of the garden- 

 er, so it is natural enough that the butcherbird, the owl, the hawk 

 and the eagle that slaughter what they eat, should have beaks that 

 are sharp and curve downwards, so that they can cut and tear 

 steaks out of their slaughtered victims. The avocet and the wood- 

 cock are so fond of worms that nature has given them very long 

 beaks so that they can drill into the muddy earth where the worms 

 are crawling. The bill of the avocet turns upward and many claim 

 that the woodcock can turn his upward too, so that he can make 

 a regular hook of it and more easily pull forth the worms. 



Kingfishers, fish hawks and mergansers catch fishes. The king- 

 fisher has a strong beak and a very, very sharp one so that it easily 

 sinks it into its victim. The fish hawk, when it dives into the water 

 for its fish, trusts to its specially favored feet to hold it, while the 

 merganser has a bill that is like a set of saw-blades and a fish has lit- 

 tle chance of escape from its serrate jaws. 



You have noticed the sifting machines on the side of the beak 

 of a spoonbill duck. The duck will gobble a mouthful of minnows 

 or snails or a combination of mud and food but he has little trou- 

 ble in sifting the objectionable matter out. 



