About the first of the month we shall again be cheered by the songs of the catbird and wren. From a tree-top near the roadside a brown thrasher will sing a song of rejoicing. In the woods the wood thrush will chant a hymn of praise.
The ground is carpeted with wild flowers, and we may gather the beautiful anemones, violets, and buttercups. The trees are putting on their dresses of green. The air rings with the joyful music of birds. Now we know that the song of the robin was true.
BIRDS' HOMES.
Nearly every bird has a trade. Some are carpenters, others are masons, weavers, tailors, basket-makers, etc. It is only when building their homes that birds work at their trades.
Then you may see the woodpecker hammering with his chisel-like bill, making a home in some dead tree. You can hear his strokes a long way through the woods. The chips fly from beneath his strong blows.
The robin, the phoebe, and the barn and eave swallows are masons. The robin moulds an inner layer of mud in his round nest and covers it with fine grasses. The phoebe uses a mixture of mud and moss in plastering his large nest on some beam or rafter.
The barn swallow also uses a beam. His nest is nearly all mud, but is lined with soft feathers. The eave swallows are the most expert masons of all. They build rows of mud tenements beneath the eaves of the barn. Each little apartment is rounded over and has a round hole for a door.
The chimney swift or swallow uses wood and glue in making the pretty little bracket-like basket he fastens to the chimney wall. His feet are so small that he cannot perch as other birds do, so when he rests he clings to the side of the chimney and leans on his tail. Each tail feather is tipped with a stiff, sharp point that keeps it from slipping.
How then do you suppose he gathers the twigs for his nest? Watch him some day when he is flying rapidly about. You may see that he goes by a dead tree, and as he passes he hovers for a second near the end of a limb. Then it is that he snaps off with his bill a small, dry twig for his home.
But how can he fasten a nest of twigs to the upright chimney wall? Well, the chimney swift carries a gluepot with him. It is in his mouth, where certain glands produce a sticky substance like mucilage. With this he glues the little twigs together and fastens them to the bricks.