CHAPTER XII
TO THE TEACHER
In this story I have tried to settle the difficult question of debit and credit between me and the out-of-doors. Shall we exterminate the red squirrels, the hawks, owls, etc., is a question that is not so easily answered as one might think. The fact is we do not want to exterminate any of our native forms of life—we need them all, and owe them more, each of them, for the good they do us, than they owe us for the little harm they may do us. Read this over with the children with its moral and economic lesson in view. Send to the National Association of Audubon Societies, New York City, for their free leaflets upon this matter. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Harrisburg, Pa., has a bulletin upon this same subject which will be sent free upon application.
FOR THE PUPIL
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June-bug: the very common brown beetle whose big white grubs you dig up under the sod and in composts.
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rose-breasted grosbeak: one of the most beautiful of our birds, and a lovely singer.
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Chickaree: the common name of the red squirrel. The red squirrel does not need to be destroyed.
tree swallows: They build in holes in orchard trees, etc.; to be distinguished on the wing from the barn swallows by their white bellies and plain, only slightly forked tails.
chippies: the little chipping sparrow, or hair-bird.
red-eyed vireos: the most common of the vireos; see picture of its nest on page 40 of “Winter.”
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cowbird: the miserable brown-headed blackbird that lays its egg or eggs in smaller birds’ nests and leaves its young to be fed by the unsuspecting foster-mother. As the young cowbird is larger than the rightful young, it gets all the food and causes them to starve.
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Thorn Mountain: one of the smaller of the White Mountains; it overlooks the village of Jackson, N. H.