Bird Sti4dy 



41 



CHICKEN WAYS 



Teacher's Story 



|AME Nature certainly pays close attention to details, 

 and an instance of this is the little tooth on the tip of 

 the upper mandible of the young chick to aid it in 

 breaking out of its egg-shell prison ; and since a tooth 

 in this particular place is of no use later, it disappears. 

 The children are delighted with the beauty of a fluffy, 

 little chick with its bright, questioning eyes and its life 

 of activity as soon as it is freed from the shell. What 

 a contrast to the blind, bare, scrawny young robin, 

 which seems to be all mouth ! The difference between 

 the two is fundamental since it gives a character for separating ground 

 birds from perching birds. The young partridge, quail, turkey and chick 

 are clothed and active and ready to go with the mother in search of food 

 as soon as they are hatched; while the young of the perching birds are 

 naked and blind, being kept warm by the brooding mother, and fed and 

 nourished by food brought by their parents, until they are large enough to 

 leave the nest. The down which covers the young chick differs from the 

 feathers which come later; the down has no quill but consists of several 

 flossy threads coming from the same root; later on, this down is pushed 

 out and off by the true feathers which grow from the same sockets. The 



An anxious stepmother. 



