246 Bird - Lore 



5. How do the other birds like him? 



6. How does the Jay break off an acorn? 



7. How does he open the acorn? 



8. Where does he hide the acorns? 



[Birds' nests are more easily found in winter than in summer, and this is really the 

 time to study them, as one can collect and observe them carefully without disturbing 

 the tenants.] 



9. Where do you find the Blue Jay's nest? 

 10. In what kind of a tree? 



I r. How high is it from the ground? 



12. Where is it in the tree, on a branch or in a fork? 



13. Is the nest easy to find? Why? 



14. Of what material is it built? 



15. How is the material arranged? 



16. What holds the nest together? 



17. In the spring try to find a Blue Jay building his home. Do both parents 



work at the nest-building? 



18. When do they commence to build their nest? 



19. How does the Jay get twigs? 



20. Where are the twigs obtained and how carried to the nest? 



This is a kind of nature-test. It differs from most school studies in that the test comes 

 right at the beginning of the subject. It is a test of the power to observe nature. Again, 

 it gives the child an experience of his own. He has something interesting for conversa- 

 tion. His own experience is really the only kind of a subject for him to write about. It 

 gives him an opportunity for self-expression, something different from the phonograph 

 method by which someone else's ideas are repeated. Do not let him put on smoked 

 glasses or stuff cotton into his ears after he has observed these twenty points. It would be 

 like planting twenty seeds in a garden and never looking at them again. Some naturalists 

 have been observing the Blue Jay for fourscore years or more, and there are still new 

 Blue Jay sounds and tricks to hear and see. Here, again, is the difference between book- 

 study and nature-study. A test in the former ends the study, but in the latter it is simply 

 opening the way for a lifelong examination, besides being a great deal more fun. By the 

 latter method, one's failures are not proclaimed, and his successes are a point in pedagogy 

 for other subjects. 



2. BLUE JAY EXPERIENCES. (A Character Study) 



As I do not know the Blue Jay experiences of other people, I shall have to tell about 

 mine. They started on a farm in South Scituate, Mass. The Blue Jays were stealing the 

 corn, and that was an unpardonable sin on the farm. There are four more chapters of 

 this story of which I will simply give the titles: An Old Shot Gun; Concealed in the 

 Bushes; Imitations of the Blue Jay's Call; A Dead Blue Jay. This paragraph would not 

 have to be written had I been given the opportunities that boys and girls have to-day for 

 bird-study. 



Right here I want to say that I do not belittle the opportunities of the farm. One has 

 to know things to succeed on the farm. He must plant, harvest, prepare, and use. In 

 the city it is a Httle money, a store, and a can-opener. If the city boy or girl wishes to 

 share in the experience of the great out-of-doors, he only needs to step into the parks 

 and use his senses. Thus he may acquire some real knowledge by observation, a funda- 

 mental principle in education. 



As a farmer-boy I knew the Blue Jay, his haunts and his failings, and could call him 



