vi 
OF BIRDS. 
of spring in times long past ? Who hears the song of the 
blue bird or the bob-o-link without a delightful reminiscence 
of school-boy days, ready to repeat with Wordsworth : 
“ And I can listen to thee yet, 
And lie upon the plain ; 
And listen till I do beget 
That golden time again.” 
Hence it is that, although all birds are interesting, the 
birds of our own country are most attractive. We have 
marked their ways ; we have watched them building their 
nests and rearing their young; we have listened to their 
ringing notes when “ creeping like snail unwillingly to 
school,” and longing for a ramble in the fields. They are 
associated with all our rural pleasures, all our holiday 
sports ; and we love them for their being indissolubly linked 
in our memories with a happy past. 
The characteristics which distinguish birds from the other 
classes of vertebrated animals, are that they lay eggs, from 
which their young are hatched by what is called incubation ; 
their skins are covered with feathers, and their jaws are 
horny, without teeth. Their blood is warm and circulates 
