80 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
birds around here. This morning I 
heard seven different kinds. I will tell 
you about a very common bird which is 
the robin. The breast of the robin is a 
dull red or chestnut. The upper parts 
are olive gray, the head and tail blackish. 
There are different kinds of robins, but 
the one I am going to write about is the 
American robin. Yesterday I saw four 
robins just after a heavy rain. They 
would hop away and then they would 
stop and listen. They were listening for 
a worm. II one heard a worm it would 
listen more closely and then pull out a 
worm* Their eggs are blue and they lay 
from three to five. Their nest is made 
of mud, sticks, straw and other things 
they can get. After the little birds are 
hatched it keeps the old birds busy to 
get worms to feed them. The baby birds 
have no feathers on but they soon get 
some. It takes two or three weeks be¬ 
fore the young robins can fly. They go 
south for the winter but return early in 
the spring. They can sing very nicely. 
Early in the morning they sing the best. 
The English sparrows are cruel to them. 
Last year the robins built a nest in the 
havshed but the sparrows chased them 
away and made a nest for themselves out 
of the robin’s nest. 
Yours truly, 
Aged 12. Carl Anderson. 
Letters have been received from Arthur 
Dreamen, Bertha Anderson, Herman 
Pletsch, Minnie Munnis, Alvina Dippel, 
James Inglis, Earl Broberg, Bernice De 
Graff, Willie Hansell, Eva Wolf, Edwin 
Munnis, Dora Gautsch, Gertrude Blum, 
Morris Wolf, James Pratt, DeWayne and 
Andra Fisher, Katie Marking, Lizzie 
Niesien, Robert Faust, John Bachmayer, 
Christine Eaust, Joseph Grosse, Gene¬ 
vieve Blankenheim, Lucy Uebersetzig, 
Lizzie Geraths, Engelbert Faust, August 
Stumpf, John Zander, Michael Enders, 
Nellie Fleming, and a very good sketch 
of the life of Audubon by a young cor¬ 
respondent who forgot to sign his name. 
NATURE STUDY IN SCHOOLS 
Nature Study Correlated With Language 
Work. 
(Continued from page 76 ) 
curiosity. The germinating sprout with 
the help of pencils was forced to leave 
the ground before the little rootlets had a 
fair chance to penetrate the dicentra on 
which it was climbing for its sustenance. 
An excursion to the park or the woods 
is always a delight. A few children at a 
time has proved more satisfactory in sus¬ 
taining the interest of the unrestrained 
youth. Birds and squirrels in their 
haunts, flowers in their harmonious set¬ 
tings, trees with their branches pointing 
toward the blue sky, and various other 
things amid their natural surroundings 
will be noticed on these excursions. 
A child, sent to Nature for information 
instead of the pages of an encyclopedia 
or other book, will not fail to accumulate 
some ideas, which, though they may be 
crudely expressed, furnish us with inter¬ 
esting compositions. S. S. 
Miss Minnie Cliff*, of Ingram, Wis., has 
again organized an Audubon society in 
her school of forty-five. The president 
is Mildred Huser and the secretary is 
Homer Anderson. The Elkhart Lake 
schools have just organised a society of 
seventy-three members in the three de¬ 
partments under the leadership of Miss 
Ida Diehle. The other officers are Mil- 
ton Goldammer, Anna Loos and Robert 
Fischer. 
