BY THE WAYSIDE. 
15 
i 
1 
Notes From an Aviary. 
We are in the month of June, 1902, 
and I shall tell you of my little family of 
birds. No more birds were taken in, although 
many wished admittance. In order to compro¬ 
mise, I had to provide a coooa dish with food 
and a trough of water to bathe close to the 
aviary. I named these birds my transient 
boarders and well pleased they were, for 
two pairs of robins built their nests 
within a block from the aviary. Without fail 
these four robins and many others came every 
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day to eat and bathe, and after a few weeks 
we noticed them taking food into their bills 
and flying away, to come back several times. 
They did this for several days, until one 
bright morning we were happily surprised to 
see a dear little family of five young robins 
with speckled breasts in the yard near the 
vestibule. The parents were going to the 
cocoa dish and bringing food to them. The 
next day the other family came, four little 
ones and the parents, and many times the four 
parents and the nine little ones would be in 
the yard. After a few days the little ones 
would come first and the parents would follow, 
finally the young robins came alone. They 
seemed to love the place so much they would 
remain until late at night. They alarmed me 
for fear some cats would get them, and I be¬ 
came very much attached to them. I concluded 
to take them in and they were at once happy. 
Now twenty-nine robins were in the aviary. A 
few days after a neighbor brought me a tiny 
little robin unable to fly, evidently through a 
storm it had fallen from its nest. We took 
it and gave it food and water* and placed it 
in the aviary, but not out of the cage, fearing 
the other birds might hurt it. I soon found 
out much to the contrary; an hour after the 
little babv robin was in, I noticed one of the 
first robins I had caught on the top of the cage 
feeding it, and also another came and brought 
food. A third one attempted to do the same, 
but the first two that claimed it fought the 
other one away. I was so pleased with their 
parental love I at once let the baby free. It 
seems incredible, but it is true nevertheless, 
that the little robin followed its foster parents 
and the parents protected it from harm. It be- 
•Ttiere is a knack in feeding young birds. Take a 
pinch of food between the thumb and the first finger, 
bring it to its bill, it will at once take it. To give it 
a drink always wait a few minutes after eating; dip 
one finger into plenty of water, let the water drip 
from the end of the finger into its bill. Four or five 
times is sufficient. Feed young birds every two hours, 
but not too much. 
came very tame with us as we would go and 
feed it and talk to it. It was nearly three 
weeks before it could fly. When I would call 
him baby, he would at once answer and look 
for me, and when baby was full grown I let 
him out to see if he would come back. For 
days he stayed near by, and every night he 
came in, until one day we missed him, and a 
few days after I received a telephone message 
from a lady living four blocks away, telling me 
that a robin had been found on their porch with 
a little aluminum band on its leg marked A. 
C. C. Mil., Wis., and it was hurt. I told her 
ic was our baby robin. W 7 e brought it home. 
The poor little bird had been fought by spar¬ 
rows and other robins, and did not know how 
to defend itself. We bathed its head with a 
few drops of carbolic acid in water and it got 
entirely well, becoming very tame. We put 
him back with the others. 
Everything went on beautifully for the rest 
of the summer. The birds gave delightful con¬ 
certs, singing together, but each its own 
song. Jake, the bluejay, the smartest of them 
all, not satisfied with his inherited song, im¬ 
itated the music of a scarlet bird which lived 
in a cage next door. It was a great pleasure 
to watch them, some scratching and picking on 
the ground, some using their bills like hammers. 
Their bath tub was eight and a half feet long 
and eighteen inches wide, and as many as ten 
would get into it together .—Lucile Clcis. 
The Difficult Seed. 
A little seed lay in the ground, 
And soon began to sprout; 
“Now which of all the flowers around,” 
It mused, “shall I come out?” 
“The lily’s face is fair and proud, 
But just a trifle cold; 
The rose, I think, is rather loud, 
And then its fashion’s old. 
“The violet is very well, 
But not a flower I’d choose; 
Nor yet the canterbury-bell,— 
I never cared for blues. 
“Petunias are by far too bright, 
And vulgar flowers beside; 
The primrose only blooms at night, 
And peonies spread too wide.” 
And so it criticized each flower, 
This supercilious seed; 
Until it woke one summer hour, 
And found itself a weed. — Selected. 
