BIRDS AS THE FRIENDS OF PLANTS
I
“Just listen, Mary Frances!” said Billy, pulling a paper out of his pocket.
“‘One robin has been known to feed his family five yards of worms a day.
“‘A chickadee will dispose of 5,500 eggs of the canker-worm moth in one day.
“‘A flicker eats no less than 9,000 ants a day.
“‘A pair of wrens have been seen to carry one hundred insects to their young in an hour. They are especially fond of plant-lice and cutworms.
“‘Little humming-birds lick plant-lice off foliage with lightning rapidity.
“‘The yellow-billed cuckoo eats hundreds of tent caterpillars in a day.
“‘Seed-eating birds destroy millions of seeds of troublesome weeds—actually eating hundreds of tons of seeds.’
“How do people know what the different birds eat?” asked Mary Frances. “Did some one watch to see what each different bird took for a meal?”
“No;” Billy referred to his clipping. “Scientists have examined the contents of the stomachs of the birds, and have learned what food each kind of bird uses. There was a time when people imagined that robins stole so many cherries and berries that it was a good deed to kill them. Now they have found that they destroy so many injurious insects that they do not begrudge them a few cherries. Besides, if mulberry trees are planted nearby they will prefer their fruit to the cherries.”
“Oh, Billy,” cried Mary Frances, “isn’t it wonderful! Not only do birds help us by destroying harmful insects and seeds, but they help us by their beauty. I believe they are the most beautiful of living things! They could have helped us just as much and have been as ugly as—cutworms.”
“Yes,” replied Billy, “I believe that is so; but it takes a girl to think such things out. The strangest thing to me, however, is that without birds we should die of starvation. This paper says that if the birds disappeared entirely, agriculture and farming would be impossible within a few years.”
II
“Bees and birds,” said Mary Frances softly, “keep us from starving. How wonderful it all seems. Why, Billy, it must have all been planned out when God made the world!”
“I have thought of that myself, Mary Frances,” said Billy; “it’s one of those thoughts a fellow doesn’t often speak out loud. I don’t know why.”
“Everybody ought to take care of birds,” went on Mary Frances. “Surely the reason they don’t is because they do not understand how wonderfully they help us. Birds and bees keep us from starving. Oh, Billy, let’s have lots of birds in our garden!”
“Why, how?” asked Billy. “Perhaps we could put food out for them.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t thinking of that. I thought maybe we could put houses where they would build their nests.”
“Of course,” replied Billy; “and we could keep a small bathtub full of water for them.”
“What fun!” cried Mary Frances. “Billy, do you know how to build the right kind of houses for each different kind of bird?”
“No, I do not,” answered Billy; “I know of only a few. They are the ones our manual training teacher showed us. I have some pictures right here in my book. It’s queer I didn’t think of them!”
“Let me see them,” cried Mary Frances. “Oh, will you make some later on?”
“I am to make them in school next term,” explained Billy. “Let me show you these pictures.”
A Robin’s Sleeping Porch
Robin Redbreast will not live in an enclosed house, but desires merely a shelter where the family can have plenty of fresh air.
“I believe in living out-of-doors,” says Mrs. Robin Redbreast, “and I shall not keep my children indoors, no matter how sanitary the house may be. They shall be educated in the open air. There is as much to be learned outdoors as indoors.”
A Bungalow for Wrens
Jenny Wren and her husband like a little perch to rest upon before entering their home. In order to keep the English sparrow from being inquisitive and troublesome, make the entrance only one inch across so that Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow cannot enter.
“Sparrows are not a bit nice neighbors,” fusses gentle Jenny Wren. “They pick a quarrel over nothing, then peck our family to pieces if they can.”
The Martins’ Hotel
Do not charge Mr. and Mrs. Martin for lodgings. Instead, be thankful that they bring their friends and relatives with them, for martins come in companies and love to linger where invited. They destroy millions of insects.
The Bluebird’s Cottage
These heavenly bluebirds, with pinkish plumage on their breasts, add great beauty to our home gardens; and fortunate is the owner of the bird house which they select “rent free.” They are terribly afraid of English sparrows, or more of them would live in the houses around about the home garden. Bluebirds eat up whole families of garden pests at a meal.—From The Mary Frances Garden Book.
QUESTIONS
Have you ever built a bird house?
Do you know that if you place a basin upside down on the post before putting the house on, cats cannot climb over it?
Will you keep an account of the birds you see every day?
Why are birds necessary to man?
Name some of the most useful birds?
How can we help birds?
Why is it not right to cage wild birds?
Why do many birds fly south in the fall?
Will you bring some pictures of birds to put on a chart?
If you build a bird house, will you bring it for the class to see?
The birds of one of our large cities are being provided with homes by the pupils of the city’s public schools. These homes are bird houses, made by the children in the manual training classes.
The president of the city’s Humane Society offers a prize every spring to the child who first has a bird tenant in the houses newly set out. The prize is a book about birds and their habits.
You can imagine how eagerly the boys and girls watch the houses to be sure of noting the exact time when a bird family moves in.—National Humane Journal.