Our Feathered Friends

by Elizabeth Grinnell; Joseph Grinnell

[5] House finch, Carpodacus mexicanus frontalis.

Linnet.

So we see that birds have a childhood as well as a babyhood, but it is very short, for they are soon taught to work hard and to be self-supporting.

A lazy young bird never gets on in the world. Parent birds are very kind but firm. It sounds as if they were sometimes scolding good-naturedly. We imagine them saying to their children, "We have shown you the seeds and the berries, now go to work. If you want food, help yourselves; for we have been to market for you long enough. Dress yourselves, too. See how you each have a bottle of oil. Now be neat and careful of your clothes, for it will be a long while before you get any more."

We have seen young birds make very awkward attempts at dressing themselves. Sitting in a tree, they try to imitate the old birds, fluttering and turning about, and rubbing their small heads on their shoulders, and falling off from the branch in their excitement.

It is this daily care of their clothes that makes birds so beautiful. It seems to us that they know very well that they will not be able to get a new suit very often, and that they must take good care of those clothes they have. We have never seen child birds smear their food over their faces and clothes, not even when they were eating bread and butter and stewed blackberries. It may seem funny to you that birds should eat bread and butter and stewed blackberries, as if they were cooks and housekeepers. But they really do, as you shall see by and by.

Little birds pay attention to what is said to them. They learn their lessons well, and they "say their pieces" like any child, and, like children, they seem to make mistakes at first. They do not take their dinner-pails and go long distances to school. They learn at home with their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters.

The school-house is anywhere, in the yard or the woods or fields. If you take the trouble to listen and keep very quiet in midsummer, you will be able to see and hear these bird schools going on at a rate that will make you smile and think that birds are real people.

You can see the children in the nests or on the branches of trees, or even on the ground, learning musical notes, and the letters of their alphabet, and running the bird scale, just like any class in school. Every now and then you will see them skip out for a drink of water at the pump or brook. They may not hurry back at once, but stop to look at themselves in the water and to frolic about in the ferns and grass.