WOODCRAFT: OR, KNOWLEDGE OF ANIMALS AND NATURE
Habits of Animals.—If you live in the country it is, of course quite easy to observe and watch the habits of all sorts of animals great and small. But if you are in a town there are many difficulties to be met with. But at the same time if you can keep pets of any kind, rabbits, rats, mice, dogs or ponies you can observe and watch their habits and learn to understand them well; but generally for Scouts it is more easy to watch birds, because you see them both in town and country; and especially when you go into camp or on walking tours you can observe and watch their habits, especially in the spring-time.
Training young ones to fly.
Then it is that you see the old birds making their nests, hatching out their eggs and bringing up their young; and that is of course the most interesting time for watching them. A good observant scout will get to know the different kinds of birds by their cry, by their appearance, and by their way of flying. She will also get to know where their nests are to be found, what sort of nests they are, what are the colors of the eggs and so on. And also how the young appear. Some of them come out fluffy, others covered with feathers, others with very little on at all. The young pigeon, for instance, has not feathers at all, whereas a young moorhen can swim about as soon as it comes out of the egg; while chickens run about and hunt flies within a few minutes; and yet a sparrow is quite useless for some days and is blind, and has to be fed and coddled by his parents.
Then it is an interesting sight to see the old birds training their young ones to fly by getting up above them and flapping their wings a few times until all the young ones imitate them. Then they hop from one twig to another, still flapping their wings, and the young ones follow suit and begin to find that their wings help them to balance; and finally they jump from one branch to another for some distance so that the wings support them in their effort. The young ones very soon find that they are able to use their wings for flying, but it is all done by degrees and by careful instruction.
If you think there is no natural history or observation of bird life possible in the city, get hold of that delightful book “Lives of the Hunted,” by Ernest Seton Thompson. There you will find a ripping story of Randy and Biddy, the two sparrows, who built a nest between them after wonderful differences of opinion. Randy started to make it of sticks, and Biddy almost declined to live with him in consequence, so he carefully pulled every stick out and dropped them on the pavement and gave in to her preferring for hay and straw. Then they used string. But when she brought feathers he drew the line and argued the point. However, the story should be read to be enjoyed as it stands in that book.
Then a large number of our birds do not live all the year round in England, but they go off to Southern climes such as Africa when the winter comes on. In September you will see the migrating birds collecting to go away, the starlings in their crowds and the swallows for the South, and the warblers, the flycatchers, and the swifts. And yet about the same time the large are arriving, so there is a good deal of travelling to and from among the birds in the air at all times of the year.
How to draw.—By the way, talking of birds, every Scout ought to be able to draw one.