BY THE WAYSIDE 
•18 
do not recall ever seeing' them pick up 
grain as some other birds do. They feed 
entirely on insects of the air and may at 
times pick a few from the ground, hut 
not often. The chipping sparrow and 
wren never eat grain, probably they eat 
a small quantity of grass and weed seed, 
blit their main food consists of insects 
which they pick from off the ground near 
their nests. 
i find the slate junco mostly in the 
woods in midsummer, but in autumn it 
flocks out in openings where there are 
plenty of weeds. It nests here in north¬ 
ern Michigan, but leaves us after the 
snow becomes deep so you may easily 
know of what its food consists. 
The friendly little chick-a-dee lives 
entirely in the woods and stays with us 
the year through. I have seen them eat 
the seeds of cedar trees, but most of their 
time is spent looking for insects in the 
bark of trees. 
The pine grosbeaks and evening gros¬ 
beaks come down from the north in late 
autumn and live mostly on mountain ash 
berries. The red poll eats some weed 
seed in autumn when they also come 
from the north, but as the snow deepens 
I see them pick the buds from the birch 
and yellow poplar. 
! wi!l not name a long list of birds, it 
would take too much time and space, but 
In careful observation you can soon 
learn to distinguish the kind of food that 
each bird lives on in its native condition. 
In some places it is not necessary to feed 
birds at all. Where the conditions are 
natural and have not been altered by 
man, the birds get their food as they did 
originallv. Here in northern Michigan 
«/ 
the bulk of the land is still uncultivated. 
The lumberman’s ax has devastated the 
forest, but there is yet an abundance of 
second growth to furnish, food for the 
resident and migratory birds. In the 
states farther south the plow has 
changed conditions from what they 
formerly were. 
What a wonderful instinct for birds to 
migrate, it seems to me those which do 
wild birds are more intelligent than 
which remain. In fact I believe the 
wild birds are more intelligent than the 
domestic birds, of which the following 
is an example. One day during the past 
summer I came upon a ruffed grouse 
just off the nest wtih her little downy 
brood, not unlike little chicks. The tac¬ 
tics she played, to decoy me away, 
showed almost human intelligence. She 
shivered as though she were dying, at the 
same time she edged slowly to one side 
trying to attract my attention so that ! 
would not notice her chicks. Not wish¬ 
ing to annoy her I walked quickly away, 
without stopping long enough to take a 
good look at the little ones. Never be¬ 
fore have I seen the young just off the 
nest, which proves they are very shy and 
know how to conceal themselves while 
breeding. 
In closing I must urge that the great¬ 
est protection we can give our birds is 
the planting of the trees and shrubs 
which they feed upon and in which they 
conceal themselves. Lilac bushes, 
hedges and thorn trees make good nest¬ 
ing places, as cats do not like to climb in 
them. Cedars, spruce and balsam con¬ 
ceal the birds at night from owls, and in- 
day from hawks. The beech and maple 
should be planted instead of the elm, 
and a mountain ash should grow in ev¬ 
ery yard. 
