You see the buzzard, like the scavengers who clean up our dirty streets, is always at work on dead things and scraps of garbage which we do not want. We respect him for doing a very necessary sort of work. He must dress to suit his occupation, like other sensible people, though we cannot help wishing the buzzard had a suit of Sunday clothes.
Turkey Buzzard.
He wears nothing on his head because he is obliged to reach far in beneath bones and thick skin in search of food. If he wore a head-dress, like his neighbors, it would get very foul and ill-smelling, and we should think him far more untidy than he is. As it is, he can slip his naked head into marrow bones and out again without much trouble, and not be afraid of spoiling his hat, as other birds would.
We would not care to be daily companions of the buzzard and the carrion crow, although they are useful and interesting birds. We would prefer to be in the company of better dressed and better bred people.
Most of the birds we know think a great deal about their dress. They work much of their time to keep it tidy and in good order. They mend their clothes, too, although they do not use a needle and thread. A little girl we know laughed heartily one day when we told her that the robin mends her dress when it is torn.
The little girl had only to watch and see that Mrs. and Miss Robin, and other birds as well, smooth out and fix up the torn and rumpled feathers till they look as good as new.
Different kinds of birds have different fashions, but these fashions never change. A bird to-day dresses exactly as its grandmother did, and the birds never seem to make fan of one another for being old-fashioned.