BY THE WAYSIDE 
53 
i= . 
SCHOOL BRANC H DEPARTMEN T_ 
Every Wisconsin School Branch is required t5 subscribe for at least one copy of BY i HE WAYSIDE 
Letters to this department should be 
written 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 Mr. Roland E. Kremers, 
Madison, Wis. To each writer whose letter 
is published will be sent an illustrated leaf¬ 
let on some bird. For the best letter each 
month we will send a second leaflet. Pre¬ 
ference will be given to letters about the 
bird study for the month and to original 
observations. 
Any Wisconsin society may, by paying 
the express, have the use of the Gordon and 
Merrill Libraries of bird books by applying 
to Mr. Kremers. 
A set of colored bird slides with a type¬ 
written lecture may be rented from Roland 
E. Kremers, 1720 Vilas Street, Madison, 
Wis. Iliinois Schools may use, without ex¬ 
pense, a library or a lecture with lantern 
slides, by applying to Miss Bunnel, Academy 
of Sciences, Chicago. 
and raising it to gratify men’s desire 
I to kill. In the former, the killing of 
the fowl is looked upon as a necessary 
even disagreeable step, one which one 
must do whether one likes it or not; 
but in the latter, the killing is the ob- 
iect and is done to gratify man’s lust 
for destroying—it is the “sport” to he 
| derived from hunting. 
- 
I- 
I 
Bob White 
('1 he Bird of the Month) 
1 . 
Not that I mean to say that he is only 
of this month, not by any means. For 
good or ill, he casts his lot with us the 
year round. It is too often for ill. The 
past winter, with its record-breaking 
snow and cold, must have proven fatal 
to many a one, and lucky was the flock 
that camped out near the abode of hu- 
jnan friends who were thoughtful 
enough to throw him some food occa¬ 
sionally. 
And he deserves friends. The birds, 
as surely every one knows now, are 
man’s chief aids in fighting those pests, 
the insects. And of all the birds, none 
is a better soldier in this warfare than 
Bob White. There is no month of the 
year when lie does not find some insects 
and devour them. In August, when he 
ought so easily live high on ripe or rip¬ 
ening grain, thirty percent of his food 
consists of insects,—wireworms, May- 
beetles (commonly called June-bugs), 
weevils, caterpillars, grasshoppers, 
chinchbugs, names abundant, but nu¬ 
isances all. 
Yes, he eats seeds too. More than he 
does insects. But what kind of seeds? 
Why weeds. Ten thousand Aveed seeds 
have been taken from a single stomach. 
Go out and count ten thousand weeds 
in your garden while you pull them up, 
and then say if you dare, that Bob 
White is no friend of yours. 
But, says the man with the gun, he 
eats grains. So he does. When the 
harvest is gathered and the farmer has 
left his fields to be gleaned by others, 
then Bob White up and fills himself 
with the kernels that would else go to 
waste. If you feel like accusing him 
now of robbery, remember that even 
with such wealth around him, he is care¬ 
ful to pay the bill by gathering up 
weeds and bugs as he goes along. Added 
to it all, is not his cheery note of value 
to you and to me ? Who, that has heard 
liis merry call from some fence-post or 
stump, not in an unfrequented wilder¬ 
ness but right here at home, would wish 
to miss it? 
