Little warblers, such as the pretty summer yellow-bird, help to keep our trees clear, doing most of their work in the tops, where we can hardly see them.
Swallows fly about in the air, catching mosquitoes and tiny flies that trouble us.
Very useful to us are the birds who feed upon dead animals, such as the turkey buzzards, who may be seen any day in our Southern States, soaring about high in the air, looking for their food.
What they eat is so very unpleasant to us that we are apt to despise the birds. But we should cherish and feel grateful to them instead. For they are doing us the greatest kindness. In many of the hot countries people could not live, if these most useful birds were killed.
Some persons think buzzards find their food by seeing it, and others are just as sure that they smell it. Perhaps they use both senses.
XIII
MORE ABOUT HIS FOOD
Some of the big birds work all the time for us. When you see a hawk sitting very still on a dead limb, what do you suppose he is doing?