I.
| owlets | training | educated | worms |
| hungry | nobody | raspberries | slipped |
| protect | quietly | woodpecker | flutter |
Copyright, 1900, by A. R. Dugmore.
The young bird needs to be educated just as a child needs to be, though not exactly in the same way.
After the young bird can fly, he needs to be taught to find his own food, and also where to sleep.
He needs to know the different calls and cries of his family, and what they all mean. He has to learn to fly, and he must learn to sing. Then he must learn what to be afraid of, and how to protect himself from his enemies. No doubt there are many lessons for him to learn that we do not know about.
If you watch little birds just out of the nest, you may see them being taught how to find their food.
The robin mother takes her little one to the ground and shows him where the worms live, and how to get them. The owl mother finds a mouse creeping about in the grass. She teaches the owlets how to pounce upon it by doing it herself before them.
The old swallow takes her young ones into the air and shows them how to catch little flies on the wing.
If you watch long enough, you may see the old bird, who is training a young one, fly away. She may leave the young one alone on a tree or on the ground and be gone a long time.
Before many minutes the little one will begin to call for food. But by and by, if nobody comes to feed him, he will look around for something to eat. Thus he will get his first lesson in finding food for himself.
Once I saw a woodpecker bring his little one to a fence close by some raspberry bushes. He fed the young bird two or three raspberries, and then quietly slipped away.
When the young bird began to feel hungry, he cried out; but nobody came. Then he looked over at the raspberries and tried to reach one. After trying three or four times he got one. Then how proud he was!
The father stayed away an hour or more. Before he came back that young woodpecker had learned to help himself very well. But the minute his father came, he began to flutter his wings and beg to be fed.