How Animals Talk 



no food for themselves so long as you take care of 

 them. They keep tabs on you, also, waiting pa- 

 tiently about the house, and soon learn what it 

 means when you emerge from your back door on a 

 snowy morning with a broom in one hand and a 

 pan in the other. They are feeding greedily the 

 moment your back is turned, and for a time they 

 are the only birds at the table. When they have 

 gorged themselves, for they have no manners, a 

 few tree-sparrows and juncos flit in to eat daintily. 

 Then suddenly the wilder birds appear jays, 

 chickadees, siskins, kinglets and, oh, welcome! a 

 flock of bob-whites coming from you know not 

 where, in obedience to a summons which you have 

 not heard. Some of these may have visited the 

 yard in time past, and are returning to it now, 

 hunger driven; but others you have never before 

 met within the city limits, and a few have their 

 accustomed dwelling in the pine woods, which are 

 miles away. How did these hungry hermits sud- 

 denly learn that food was here ? 



The answer to that question is simple, and en- 

 tirely "sensible" if you think only of birds that 

 live or habitually glean in your neighborhood. 

 Some of them saw you scatter the food, or else 

 found it by searching, while others spied these 

 lucky ones feeding and came quickly to join the 

 feast. For birds that live wider afield there is also 



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