BY THE WAYSIDE 
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one of them came in our cage. The lit¬ 
tle wild canary bird is bright yellow, 
with black wings and a small black spot 
on his head. I have belonged to the 
Andubon Society three years next spring. 
I am nine years old. 
Rosa Louise Gilbertson. 
Th ese little birds should be called gold¬ 
finches lor thistle-birds.— Ed. 
Cross Plains, Wis., Jan. 27, 1906. 
! ! ' ' k i; )’ 
Dear Wayside: 
J D 1 
One day I saw an owl in a tree near 
our house. It was white and it had 
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brown spots. I often heard them scream; 
they say “hii, bu.” I hear them nearly 
every night. They catch mice, frogs and 
little insects and other animals. The 
one I saw w r as quite large. I guess it was 
an old one. Owls can see better at night 
than in day time with their big eyes. 
At night they go out to get their food. 
They build their nests in hollow trees 
with leaves and dry grass. 
Yours sincerelv, 
Lizzie Geraths. 
1 . {; )' ‘ _ _ ' / ‘ : 
i Vt ;;•••. •*' , 
Cross Plains, Wis.. Jan. 27, 1906. 
The woodpecker is a beautiful bird. 
Its feathers are very beautiful. It pecks 
at the wood of the trees. Some times we 
can hear the noise when it pecks. It 
likes to eat corn. Its tail is long and its 
bill is very long too. 
Now I will write vou a pretty little 
/ . " , . i ; 
story about a woodpecker. One day last, 
winter when Mamma went out to a 't a 
pail of water she saw a woodpecker 
hopping about in the snow. Mamma 
was surprised when she saw the poor 
little thing and she took it into the 
house. We gave him some bread 
crumbs and some warm water to drink. 
After a few days the little woodpecker 
died. Yours sincerely, 
Maggie Vosen. 
Cross Plains, Jan. 29, 1906. 
Dear Wayside: 
The chicken hawk is a very cruel bird. 
He eats little chickens or kills them. 
There are many chicken hawks around 
our place. Last summer my father and 
I were walking in the yard and a chicken 
hawk flew down on a little chicken and 
my father killed him. The chicken 
hawks are about eighteen inches long. 
When a mother hen sees a chicken hawk 
she calls her little ones under her wings 
and they usually come. 
Yours sincerely, 
Aged 12. Josephine Zander. 
The first school branch society in Wis¬ 
consin lor 1906 has been organized by 
Mrs. Iva Staufl’acher among the second 
grade children of Ladysmith with an en¬ 
rollment of thirty-two. 
“Bird Guide” by C. A. Reed, published 
bv the author at Worcester, Mass., is a 
v ;• ' 
very helpful little book for beginners in 
bird study. Part II contains the birds 
east ol the Rockies. . Each bird is given 
a short description which is accompanied 
by a picture in color. The small size 
and convenient shape of the book make 
it especially useful as a field guide. 
Letters have been received from Jessie 
Hull", Harold Behn, Blanch Schwass. 
Arthur Polkow, Jas. Ingelis, E. Pochette; 
Willie Hansel, Mary Bodman, Margaret 
Ritner, Bernice DeGraff, Hazel Simons, 
Rita Port, Harold Behn, Blanch Schwass, 
Walter Brown, Arthur Polkow. Elsie 
Gesch, Joseph Miller, Minnie Munnis, 
Carl Anderson, Henry Hanson, Bennie 
James, Lizzie James, Henry James, An¬ 
gela Saeman, John Uebersetzig, Katie 
Marking. Lucy Uebersetzig, Mary Bod- 
man, Duncan Lawrence. 
