common and does not seem to be so mucli afraid of man as some of 

 its relations. 



But I am not going to talk about the good or the harm that birds 

 do just now, that may come later, but I wanted to show you why I 

 think you ought to study the birds about your home, and how I think 

 you ought to study them. Tc.-do)-, as it is late in March, let us go out 

 into the woods and see how many different kinds of birds we can find 

 and try to learn something about each of them. Of course we cannot 

 learn all about them in a single trip like this, but we can begin, and 

 then by watching them from day to day we can have them answer all 

 the questions that we choose to ask. 



Listen! That is the first note of our earliest arrival, the Uue-hird. 

 He has been called the "Darling of Spring," and that soft, pleasing 

 warble can come from no other throat. Xotice his different tones. 

 What do they mean? Can you hear him warble half angrily, then 

 coaxingly, then cheerily and confidently, and the next moment 

 sadly and plaintively? You must learn these different notes, for they 

 each have a meaning which you can find if you are in earnest in try- 

 ing to learn all you can of bird life. 



There he is, no one can mistake the blue-bird. I wonder if we will 

 see his mate, for sometimes he comes a week in advance of her. Yes, 

 there she is also, but not quite so gaily dressed. Why do you suppose 

 her feathers are not so bright a blue as her mate's? Notice this sum- 

 mer how many different kinds of birds you can find in which the col- 

 ors of the female are not so bright as those of the male. Suppose you 

 do not ask anyone to tell you the reason, but see if you can work it 

 out yourself. There must be seme good reason for it, for everything 

 in nature has its reason. 



But there they fly to that knot-hole in yonder apple tree. Why do 

 you suppose they are examining it so intently? Place a box in your 

 garden and see whether they will choose that, or a hole in a rotten 

 stump or tree for their home. But while they are so busy let us see 

 if we can how they are dressed. Perhaps as the male bird is the more 

 showy of the two we had better watch him. His coat is blue, no mis- 

 take about that, and some one has called it the azure blue of the spring 

 sky. Wliat is the color of his throat and breast? What is the color of 

 his under parts? Are his eyes large or small? What is the color of 

 his legs and beak? How long is he? Don't you see you will have to 

 carry a note book with you so you can put down all you are learning? 

 I hope he will not meet with the sad fate of a blue-bird I found last 

 August, who had been indulging in his favorite pastime of peeping 



