EXPLANATION NIGHT 107 



VIII. Winged Hunters . . Mammals wlio have membranes lietween 



the fingers of their liands or fore limbs 

 that form wings. (Bats.) 



"These guilds will perhaps be hardei- for 3'ou to 

 remember in the Iseginning than the Bird Guilds, for 

 there are more of them, and they have longer names ; 

 but if you look at the tree and pictures, and try to 

 remember one animal that belongs to each guild, all the 

 rest will follow." 



" Uncle," said Nat, " do our i\Iammals make long 

 spring and fall journeys as the birds do, and can we 

 divide them into citizens, and summer citizens, and 

 visitors ? " 



" Oh, yes ! and do they pay taxes and work for their 

 living like Citizen Bird?" asked Dodo. 



"Nat, your question is easier to answer than Dodo's. 

 Mammals do not travel as birds do, and few, if any, 

 have a regular time for moving except to shift their 

 feeding grounds for various reasons. Of course, if 

 parts of the country are settled by House People, and 

 woods are cut down and wild jsasture ploughed up, or 

 waterways drained, the animals who have lived there 

 will move on to new homes ; but this is not a regular 

 migration. 



■ " Then, again, grass-eating animals, who spend the 

 summer in the mountains, come down into sheltered 

 valleys for the winter, and so on ; but in spite of this we 

 cannot call our Mammals travellers. It is difficult to 

 say which of them are useful citizens, some undoubt- 

 edly are, and pay taxes by killing nuisance animals, and 

 yielding fur or food, but in a very different way from 

 Citizen Bird, who works tmth us to raise the crops. 



