BY THE WAYSIDE 
53 
SCHOOL BRANCH DEPARTMENT 
Etfery Wisconsin School Branch is required to subscribe for at least one copy of BY THE WAYSIDE 
Letters to this department should be writ¬ 
ten on only one side of the page, should give 
name, age and address of the writer, and 
should be mailed by the first of the month; 
Illinois writers sending to Miss Mary Drum¬ 
mond, Spring Lane, Lake Forest, Ill., and 
Wisconsin writers to Miss Edith Edwards, 
Appleton, Wis. To each writer whose letter 
is published will be sent a beautiful colored 
picture of the bird of the month. For the 
best letter each month we will send the 
Wayside free for one year. Preference will 
be given to let ers about the bird study for 
the month and to original observations. 
The wren button, which is the badge of 
the Audubon Society, costs two cents and can 
be bought from Miss Mary Drummond or 
Mr. Movie. 
Any Wisconsin society may, by paying the 
j express, have the use of the Gordan and 
; Me rrill Libraries of bird books, by applying 
to Mr. Moyle. 
A set of colored bird slides with a type¬ 
written lecture may be rented from Chas. E. 
Brown, State Historical Building, Madison, 
Wis. Illinois Schools may use, without ex¬ 
pense, a library or a lecture with lantern 
slides, by applying to Miss Martha E. Buhre, 
Academy of Sciences, Chieago. 
Bird of the Month. 
Beginning with the February number 
we will give to the author of each letter 
published in the Wayside a beautiful 
colored picture of the ‘‘Bird of the Month” 
and for the best letter each month we 
will give a year’s subscription to the 
Wayside. Letters upon the bird of 
the month or, especially during the win¬ 
ter, letters about how } 7 ou have fed or 
protected the birds, will be given the 
preference. 
Let us take the bluejay for the bird of 
the month next time. Now the bluejay 
has his faults, his voice is not always 
sweet and still he likes the sound of it. 
His crv is so harsh and so jeering that 
you feel that the bluejay knows how un¬ 
popular he is and is trying to show that 
he doesn’t care. And they say he steals. 
And they even tell of him taking the 
eggs ofsmall defenceless birds and eating 
them. I think it would be well for us 
not to believe this until we catch him at 
it. 
But when, on a bright, sunshiny, win¬ 
ter morning, } 7 ou see him moving about 
in the branches of some tree, you stop 
and, forgetting all about his bad habits, 
you only think what a bright spot he 
makes on a winter’s day. How splendid 
he is and his. plumage is as bright as 
ever. He is very welcome at this time 
of the year. 
Prize Letter . 
Biggsville, Illinois, Dec. 28, 1908. 
Dear Wayside: 
There are some lively little birds in 
the hedges as I come to school. They 
fly 7 up quick and go through the hedge 
to the other side. I wish they would 
come near the school house. I have 
seen them on the trunk of the hickory 
tree. They look under even 7 piece of 
bark to find something to eat. They 
have shiny black eyes and a black cap 
and are black under the chin. The rest 
of the body is pretty gray. We have 
put some crumbs in a box on a tree near 
a school ’window, and I hope they will 
feed near us. He is not slow when he 
moves about. He hops quickly from 
one branch to another and says chicka- 
•/ 
dee, chickadee. Sometimes he savs 
“dee” once, and sometimes he says it six 
times. 
Aged 9. Helen M. Whiteman. 
Biggsville, Ill., Dec. 30, 1908. 
Dear Wavside: 
•/ 
Every night when I go home from 
