Fox sparrows: See the frontispiece. The largest, most beautiful of our sparrows. Nests in the Far North. A migrant to New England and the Southern States.
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The crows were winging over toward their great roost: Don’t fail this winter to spend, if not Christmas Day, then one of your Christmas vacation days, in the woods, from morning until the crows go over to their roost. You will never forget that day.
CHAPTER VI
TO THE TEACHER
Read to the pupils Emerson’s poem “The Titmouse,” dwelling on the lines,—
“Here was this atom in full breath,
Hurling defiance at vast death,” etc.
and the part beginning,—
“’Tis good will makes intelligence,”
letting the students learn by heart the chickadee’s little song,—
“Live out of doors
In the great woods, on prairie floors,” etc.
Poem and chapter ought mutually to help each other. Read the chapter slowly, explaining clearly as you go on, making it finally plain that this mere “atom” of life is greater than all the winter death, no matter how “vast.”
FOR THE PUPIL
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“The Lilac”: My lilac bush with its suet has become a kind of hotel, or inn, or boarding-house, for the chickadees.