You will need two seed-vessels for each bird. Divide one through the centre, separating the two wings, and use one of these wings for the body of the bird, as you see in the diagram [Fig. 120]. Clip off the two corners of the square end where the arrows point to shape it like a bird's head, then carefully bend up the seed-vessel pair of wings, and fit the body down in between them, resting it on the centre part that holds the wings together. One or two stitches with needle and thread, passed through wings and body, will keep them close and secure.
Fig.120 - Bird's body.
When your bird is finished ([Fig. 119]), thread a needle with black thread, tie a good-sized knot in the end of the thread, and push the needle from underneath up through the back of the bird where it will come out between the wings. Draw the knot up close to the body and tie the other end of the thread to a low branch of a tree. When you stand off a little distance you cannot see the thread and your bird will seem to be hovering in mid-air. A gentle breeze will stir the bird and make it look as if flying. If there is no breeze, you can blow on it, or fan it until the little thing flutters about almost as if alive.
Be careful to string the thread through the bird at a place that will make it evenly balanced.
CHAPTER XIX
BUCKEYE HORSE AND BUCKEYE RIDER
All children love the clean, glossy, brown horse-chestnuts or buckeyes. There are so many buckeye-trees in Ohio that it is called the Buckeye State, and many villages of Long Island are full of them. They are used for shade-trees and often line the streets, where they send down showers of their nuts, pretty but not good to eat. Everywhere the children gather basketfuls and take them home to play with, and in other Beard books we have told of some things that can be made of buckeyes, but the buckeye horse and rider which you see here have just arrived.