The wood pewee, like its relative, the phœbe, feeds largely on the family of flies to which the house fly belongs.
The birds of prey, the majority of which labor night and day to destroy the enemies of the husbandman, are unceasingly persecuted.
Seventy-five per cent of the food of the downy woodpecker is insects.
The cow blackbird lays its eggs in other birds' nests, one in a nest. What happens afterwards?
Why should not a man love a bird? If the palm of one could clasp the pinion of the other, there would come together two of the greatest implements God and nature have ever given any two creatures to explore the world with, and when two bipeds gaze at each other, eye to eye, the intelligence in the one might well take off its hat to the subtle instincts in the other.—James Newton Baskett.
A bird on the bonnet means so much less bread on the table. A bird in the orchard is a sort of scavenger and pomologist combined, and does his share in giving you a dish of fruit for dinner. The scarlet tanager looks like a living ruby in a green tree; but—I speak bluntly—it looks like a chunk of gore on a woman's bonnet. In behalf of good taste and the birds, I enter my protest against this barbarous Custom.—Leander T. Keyser.
What does it cost, this garniture of death?
It costs the life which God alone can give;
It costs dull silence, where was music's breath;
It costs dead joy, that foolish pride may live.
Ah, life, and joy, and song, depend upon it,
Are costly trimmings for a woman's bonnet.
—May Riley Smith.
The program may be diversified by songs about birds. Many suitable for this occasion will be found in a collection called "Songs of Happy Life," made by Sarah J. Eddy. It is published by the Nature Study Publishing Company, of Providence, R. I.