64 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
mid did the same. This time he had some¬ 
thing in his beak. It flew on the top of our 
house with it and hopped around a little while. 
Then he ate what he had and flew out of sight. 
Yours truly, 
Aged 12. Fay Brown. 
Some Things I Know About Robins. 
When the robins came from the south this 
spring there was one pair that seemed more 
friendly than the rest. They would come 
right up close to us and would not be the least 
bit afraid. They Avould hop, hop and hop, 
along and then stop and listen for a worm. 
We noticed that they were building a nest, 
and one night the wind was raging, and it 
blew the nest out of the tree. The next 
day I went out in the garden, and I saw some¬ 
thing blue on the ground. I went over to it 
and picked it up and there I saw it was a 
robin’s egg. I put it away for a few days, 
and a dear little fellow came to our house 
and wanted to see it. I showed him the egg. 
I had it in a little basket. The little boy was 
so excited that he pushed my arm and the 
egg fell out of the basket and broke. The 
birds were not discouraged, for they went to 
work and built another nest, and had some 
baby birds. One evening as papa was digging 
in the garden, the old birds came and picked 
up worms as papa spaded the ground, and 
then they would fly up to the nest and feed 
the young robins. 
The next morning we heard the old bird 
crying so pitiously. We felt as if we had tak¬ 
en a Rip Van Winkle sleep, and had slept 
from the nineteenth of April to the twen¬ 
tieth of December for we awoke to find every¬ 
thing covered with snow. But it was the 
twentieth of April and the birds were coltfc 
and hungry. So after it stopped snowing, 
my sisters and I took brooms and a shovel 
and cleaned the snow off the roof of the chick¬ 
en house, and put some wheat and corn on 
if for the birds to eat, but I fear the young 
robins are dead. 
Clara Fiedler, 
Aged 11. Alton, Ill. 
Here is an interesting report from an Illi¬ 
nois Audubon society. 
Maywood, Ill., Jan. 31, 1905. 
Dear Wayside: 
I thought I would write and toll you about 
our Audubon Society we have started. There 
were fifty-two members in it when we start¬ 
ed some time last November, and more are 
coming in right along. We have a president, 
a secretary, a treasurer, and a committee of 
six. We elect new officers every four months, 
and if a child is absent three times in suc¬ 
cession he is dropped from the society and has 
to pay a cent to enter again; also each child 
pays a cent every month that we use for get¬ 
ting papers and books. We used to meet at 
my mother’s school, but now the parents of 
the children who are in the society asked us 
to their homes. So now we meet every Thurs¬ 
day at different houses, and we have pieces 
and talk about the birds, and mama reads the 
Wayside to us. After the pieces and when we 
are through, the people give us refreshments. 
The society last from four to half past. First 
the president calls for order and then our 
secretary reads our roll call, and we begin to 
recite our pieces. Last Thursday when we 
were talking about the birds one girl told 
us that she had taken her Christmas tree and 
sprinkled it with crumbs and put it outside 
where it was soon covered with birds. An¬ 
other boy had filled little paper baskets with 
crumbs and hung on the Christmas tree and 
they were all gone the next day. We feed 
the birds at the back of our house and there 
is always a flock around the house. 
Yours truly, 
Juanita Reade. 
The Trees in Winter. 
(Continued from Page 60) 
of other conifers will come very naturally and 
quickly. 
The shapes of trees, their buds and their 
bark—here are three good points of departure 
ir tree study. How large a number of persons 
there are, the majority easily, who cannot tell 
you the names of the trees in their immediate 
vicinity? Here is real practical knowledge 
that they have never gotten, and how much 
satisfaction its possession would have given! 
Let the children become acquainted with trees 
while they are in school, and they will never 
forget. There are probably twenty or thirty 
different kinds of trees within walking dis¬ 
tance of the school. Here is work for the 
nature study periods in February. 
“Studies of Trees in Winter” by Annie 
Oakes Huntington is a very helpful book up¬ 
on this subject. , R. M. 
