542 
A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS 
The Bird 
What is a bird? Qf course you all know, but can you 
put it in words? 
A bird isn’t a plant; it is an animal, you say? 
Yes; but a cat is an animal, and a snake, and a horse, and 
we are animals ourselves. 
“A bird is a flying animal.” 
Very true, but so is a bat, and, as you know, a bat has fur 
and looks very like a mouse, and a bird does not. 
Ah, you give it up. Very well, listen and remember. A 
bird is the only animal who has feathers! With his hollow 
bones filled with buoyant warm air, and covered with these 
strong pinions, he rows through the air as we row a boat 
through the water with the oars, steering, himself with his 
tail made of stiff feathers and shaped to his particular need, 
and with small feathers laid close, overlapping each other like 
shingles, and bedded on an undercoat of down, is he clothed 
and protected both from heat, cold, and wet. 
The eye of the bird is different from ours, for it magnifies 
and makes objects appear much larger to it than they do to us. 
Also while with other animals, each group has practically the 
same kind of feet or noses, birds have these two features built 
on widely different plans, so that when you grow wise and are 
trying to really study birds you will find that you must be 
guided to the orders in which they belong often by their beaks 
and feet. 
Barnyard Ducks, as you know, have webbed toes for swim- 
ming. and flat bills to aid them in shoveling their natural food 
from the mud. 
Birds of Prey, like the Hawks and Owls, have strong 
hooked beaks and powerful talons or claws, for seizing and 
tearing the small animals upon which they feed. 
The Woodpeckers (all but one) have two front and two 
hind toes, to help them grasp the tree bark firmly as they rest, 
while they have strong-cutting, chisel-like beaks, which they 
also use for tapping or drumming their rolling love songs. 
While the insect-eating song birds have more or less slender 
bills and four toes, three in front and one behind, for perching 
