For young children especially, interest is most readily aroused through the study of the activities which ally bird and child. The character and the adaptation of birds' clothing, foods and homes to their peculiar needs and environment; glimpses of nest-life; characteristic traits; disposition; the cleverness of the parent birds in outwitting enemies and protecting the young; the skillful uses of tools—bills and claws—are all readily appreciated by the children. Add to these, studies in protective coloration, migration, the relation of birds to insects injurious to vegetation, and kindred subjects, which form a never-failing source of delight. Through such work, the child learns almost unwittingly much of bird structure, classification, and description which would otherwise prove dry and barren of interest.
The boy who thus comes into fellowship with birds will not delight in beanshooters or find his chief joy in robbing birds' nests and violating game laws; while his sister will try to find something more ornamental for her hat than slaughtered birds.
THE PROGRAM
While programs must vary according to the needs and ability of the children, a few suggestions may be helpful to all.
DECORATION
'Sharp Eyes,' and 'I Spy,' by William Hamilton Gibson, 'Nature's Hallelujah,' and 'The Message of the Bluebird,' by Irene Jerome, are full of delightfully suggestive and artistic bits of bird-life for black-board pictures.
A pretty corner may be made by a small bush or the branch of a large tree in which the nests collected by the children are appropriately placed.
Pictures of bird-lovers and writers should be in evidence. Audubon, Wilson, John Burroughs, Bradford Torrey, Olive Thorne Miller, and others. Many of these may be found in recent magazines.
Anecdotes and short sketches from their books may be told or read.
COMPOSITIONS
Compositions prepared in advance, on various phases of bird-life, may be read by their young authors. These may be the result of work previously done in class along the lines before mentioned, or of new observations and experiences gathered for Bird-Day. The greater the variety of topics, the better.
Descriptions of individual birds, comparisons of birds, individually or by classes, as to:
Food.—Character; where, when, and how obtained.
Home.—Location; materials; construction; appearance.
Young.—Number; appearance; care and education.
Songs and Calls.—Emotions expressed; character, short or sustained, high or low, sweet or harsh, etc.
Relations.—Names of other birds of same class.
Bird Craftsmen.—Masons, miners, weavers, tailors, etc.
Tree-top Neighbors.—Spring, summer, fall and winter.
How Birds Travel.
How Birds Help the Farmers.
Invitations to the Birds.—Boxes put up for them; seed-cups, bits of suet nailed to posts or trees.
CHALK TALKS
Stories may be told by teachers or pupils with accompanying illustrations hastily sketched on the black-board as the story progresses. The following lend themselves readily to this work:
'The Ugly Duckling,' ' The Daisy and the Lark,' Hans Christian Anderson; 'The White Heron,' Sarah Orne Jewett; 'The White Blackbird,' Guy de Maupassant; 'The Crane Express,' Child World; 'The Crow and the Pitcher,' 'The Fox and the Crane,' 'The Crane and the Crows,' Æsop's Fables.
FOR READING OR RECITATION
'Nest Egg,' Robert Louis Stevenson; 'Anxiety,' George Macdonald; 'The Song Sparrow,' 'The Veery,' Dr. van Dyke; 'The One in the Middle,' Margaret Eytinge; 'The Bluebird,' Emily Huntington Miller; 'The Peter Bird,' Henry Thompson Stanton; 'The Robin,' Celia Thaxter; 'Brother Robin,' Mrs. Anderson; 'The Birds' Orchestra,' Celia Thaxter; 'The Sandpiper,' 'Little Birdies,' Tennyson; 'The Brown Thrush,' Lucy Larcom; 'The Titmouse,' Emerson; 'The Stormy Petrel,' Barry Cornwall; 'The Sorrowful Sea Gull,' Child World; 'Robert of Lincoln,' 'The Return of the Birds,' Bryant; 'The Blackbird,' Alice Cary; 'The Crow's Children,' 'The Chicken's Mistake,' Phœbe Cary; 'What the Birds Said,' Whittier.
[Migration Tables for April and May]
At our request, Dr. A. K. Fisher has furnished the following notes on the spring migration. They are based on fifteen years' observation and will therefore prove valuable as a guide, and interesting for comparison, to other observers. A list of Mississippi Valley migrants, which we expected to receive, unfortunately arrived too late for publication, while a list from Philadelphia, by Mr. Witmer Stone, is necessarily omitted for lack of space.—Ed.
AVERAGE DATES OF ARRIVAL OF THE COMMONER BIRDS AT SING SING, N. Y., DURING APRIL AND MAY
BY DR. A. K. FISHER