Little Bird 
Friends. 
(55) 
THE BIRD WORLD. 
The Indigo Finch's Home. 
My Lapis Lazuli comes from North America; 
that is his native country, and I think several 
of them flying about in the bright sunshine must 
indeed be a splendid sight. He, like many 
foreign birds, loses his gay colour when he 
moults in the autumn, only, regaining it in the 
spring. During the winter hens a quite dark 
brown, with only just a touch of blue here and 
there. 
He is a migratory bird 1 ;-: that is, one who fan¬ 
cies a change of air every year—like some rich 
people, who have a hou$e in England where 
they enjoy the summer, * and -'another in the 
South of France where they live in the winter, 
leaving cold winds and fogs behind. Our littleblue 
friend does not take quite such a long journey 
as some of the swallows do. He lives in the 
northern parts of the United States and Canada 
in the summer, travelling southwards towards 
the Mississippi River at the^approach of winter. 
But Lapis Lazuli does not seem to mind the 
English climate, as he is quite well all the 
year round in my room, where we get nearly 
all the sunshine, but where there is no fire even 
in quite cold weather. 
Migration Fever. 
It is a -curious thing that, although the 
autumn passes by without his making any fuss 
about migrating southwards, in the spring for 
a time he feels very uncomfortable. Something 
seems to say to him, “ Go north ! go north ! ” 
Although he is quite happy, not too warm, and 
of course has plenty of food, this is Nature’s 
call to him. Perhaps you do not know that 
most of our own British birds who are migra¬ 
tory travel chiefly at night. It is evidently the 
same with the Indigo birds, as Lapis Lazuli, 
instead of sleeping quietly all night, as people 
with easy consciences and good health should 
do, flies about the cage calling out at the high¬ 
est pitch of his voice. This is naturally most 
annoying to the other inhabitants of the 
•Chateau. Sometimes they are quite scared, and 
begin to fly about, too. But after a few nights 
they get accustomed to this strange behaviour, 
.and only scold him in very sleepy voices. 
Migrating Beasts. 
This migratory instinct is so strong that it 
amounts almost to madness in some curious 
little animals that live in Norway, called lem¬ 
mings. They are active and fierce, rather 
larger than a mole, and very fat. When at¬ 
tacked by a foe, instead of running away they 
-stand on their hind legs, lean their backs against 
a large stone or the trunk of a tree, and fight 
to the death At certain seasons, about every 
three or four years, the call comes to them with 
irresistible power, “ Go west! go west! ” They 
collect in immense flocks and prepare to obey. 
Only some go, of course, somewhat in the way 
that bees swarm when they begin to feel over¬ 
crowded or some of the young folk are eager 
for adventures. In the case of the bees this 
idea is generally crowned with success. But 
not so, alas ! with the lemmings. They obey 
the call, strictly and literally, as though each 
little lemming had a compass in his waistcoat 
pocket. On their journey westward, should a 
little hillock be in the way, they go over it, not 
round it. When they come to a river they swim 
across. 
Wholesale Suicide. + 
Well, in Norway, if anyone travels persistently 
westwards, there is only one end possible, and 
that is that at last they reach the sea. And so 
do the lemmings, but, without hesitating a 
moment, they plunge into the waves and try 
to swim across. Of course, they cannot do this, 
and each year thousands of the little animals 
perish in this way. When I was in Norway I 
saw one or two lemmings quietly feeding in the 
grass, but it was not the right time of the year 
to see the migratory march. I was glad it was 
not, for I think it must be a terrible sight. 
Their unreasoning obedience always puts me in 
mind of the little poem, “ Casabianca,” that 
begins, “ The boy stood on the burning deck.” 
More about “ Lapis Lazuli .” 
During the summer Lapis Lazuli has a lovely 
song, very clear and sweet. Besides seeds, he 
is very fond of some insects, and his favourites 
are young grasshoppers. He will take them 
from my fingers, giving the head a good nip 
first so that the creature is dead at once, and 
then he eats them up at his leisure. Lapis 
Lazuli is a very nice, well-mannered bird, and 
quite one of my favourites. 
Let us try to do a little “ imagining,” as small 
children call it, about the different countries 
where my birds were born. I have never my¬ 
self been out of Europe. Perhaps many of 3mu 
have never been out of England. All the birds 
that I have now have come from Asia, Africa, 
America, or Australia. Even other European 
countries are different from England. The peo¬ 
ple are different, the country parts are different, 
and the towns different. And in these other con¬ 
tinents the difference must be much greater. 
But I think it is delightful to think about them. 
If we cannot go to the country itself it is best 
to read what we can about it, then hear it 
described by those who have been there, and 
then add our own “ imaginings,” which will 
just give the finishing touch and make it all 
seem much more real. 
His Native Country. 
Now Lapis Lazuli comes from North America, 
and this is of course in some ways much less 
foreign than any other foreign country, partly 
because the people speak English. Many of the 
words they use are strange to us, and also the 
pronunciation, but still, it is very nearly the 
same language that we speak ourselves, and 
this is a great bond of union. Then, more than 
that, the people, to a large extent, are our 
own flesh and blood; in a sense, cousins, as it 
