70 
by the wayside 
was about two she came west to visit her 
grandmother and was sick so was shut 
hi the house for months. One of her 
amusements was to watch the birds come 
to a piece of suet hung on a lilac bush 
near the window. Sometimes she was 
told a chickadee was on it and some¬ 
times that a woodpecker was. One day 
she was alone in the room when she 
called “Oh! grandma come quick, there s 
a chick-a-pecker on my suet!” Soon 
what she called a “wobin” came and 
when the warhlers came she was excited 
over the “wabblers." Once when she 
was found throwing her uneaten lunch 
out of the window, she sweetly informed 
her aunt that she was feeding the birds. 
She is six now and calls the birds by 
their right names, but she will never for¬ 
get the lessons oflove and thoughtfulness 
taught her that winter. 
Dick loved bird’s eggs. He knew it 
was wrong to rob the nests because his 
mother had told him so repeatedly, but 
he could not resist. One spring a dear, 
old robin built in a tree in the front 
yard. Dick’s mother told him that the 
bird had trusted them, and it was a great 
honor and that she would punish him 
well if he went near the nest. "V ou can 
imagine how she felt when she looked 
out and saw him climbing that tree. 
When the frightened little boy dropped 
to the ground she was there ready for 
him and marched him into the house, 
placed him across her knee.and spanked 
him. He took it without making a 
sound which was a great surprise until 
he could keep it no longer, and he 
opened up his mouth and out came a 
badly broken robin’s egg. He tiad had 
no opportunity to dispose ot it, but it 
was a better cure for him than the spank¬ 
ing for he never even wanted to rob an- 
other nest. 
The Robin. 
The robin is one of the first birds to 
visit us in the spring. Sometimes he 
comes as early as February. 
The robin’s head is wholly black, his 
back is brown, and his breast is much 
the color of our Jersey cow. 
Once I saw two robing which were 
very much excited. They scolded and 
dashed wildly about and then flew to a 
limb on a tree. Presently as I watched 
the nest and saw a squirrel lift up his 
head again as the angry bird dashed at 
him. The squirrel was squatting in the 
midst of the eggs, breaking them open 
and feasting upon them. It must have 
been a very sad sight, when the mother 
bird returned to the nest; the eggs all 
lqroken, which she had leit there a few 
minutes before. 
One summer I went visiting and I saw 
a robin sitting on a fence. It was a 
small robin and did not fly away. I got 
a shovel and dug some worms and gave 
them to the robin. He ate them 4ml 
did not fly away. We gave him some 
more and he ate until we went away. 
Oswego, Ill., April 17, 1907. 
Dear Wayside: 
The migrating birds are all back again. 
I thought that I would tell you about a 
brown thrasher. Their backs are red¬ 
dish brown, and their breasts cieamy 
spotted with brown, while their sides 
are heavily streaked. The thrashers are 
about the length and build of a cuckoo. 
But you can tell them at a distance. 
The breast of the cuckoo is white while 
