and the were of things and the baby was only a month or two old father was working for mr grant and he thought very highly of him just as all the men do now but i did not like him because he would not allow us boys to throw at the birds or rob their nests one day as i was going through this very wood and no one was near enough to see me i took a s nest with five tiny birds in it i hid them in the basket i was carrying to mother i knew that we had an old cage under the at home and i thought that i would put the birds in it and watch them the nest was very dry and i burned it so that i might not be found out mother was very busy indoors and so i put the birds in the cage without her seeing me for i knew that she would punish me if she learned that i had been cruel to the little creatures i soon noticed that mother was in trouble for father had not come home and she did not know the reason at last i was sent to bed and i lay and thought about the birds in the cage out under the but at length i slept and i must have dreamed for i thought that father had not come and i had been sent out to find him i asked a man where my father was and he told me that mr grant would not have my father work for him any more but that we were to go far away and be � like the little birds that i had put in the cage � without a home there was not a song of birds in the woods as i went back to the house my mother was making the children ready to leave she was crying and so were the children i tried to comfort her and then i went out to look at the birds they were dead and so great was my distress that i awoke it was a dream but a part of it was true the birds were dead is that all asked robert that is all will you take the nest again tell another story there is no hurry about taking the nest do you think that he took it expression practice the sounds of ch t wh th touch why thing they with touched what think than without reach when breath there mother reached whisper length thai another the poem the on page the dead robin i killed a robin the little thing with scarlet breast and glossy wing that came in the apple tree to sing a little flutter � a little cry � then on the ground i saw her lie i didn t think she was going to die but as i watched her i soon could see she never would sing for you or me any more in the apple tree a queer bird in on the other side of the world there lives a strange kind of bird which the nest you ever heard about the true name of this bird is but we will turn his name into plain english and call him big foot mr big foot is not a large bird he is not much larger than a but there is no other bird that so big a nest when mr and mrs big foot think it about time to build a nest they begin to gather all the sticks they can find they pick up leaves branches stems flowers and small plants and pile them on the ground where they want their nest they keep on with this work every day for a long time at last they have made a thick soft bed that is nearly round it is so large that you would think a hundred such birds could sit upon it but they do not want to sit upon it they now bring sand and earth and little stones and cover it all over they cover it so well that when it is done it looks like a hill of earth it is highest in the and slopes down all around so that when it rains the water will run off sometimes a nest is twelve feet high in the and thirty feet across at the bottom it is wonderful that two small birds can build so big a nest they have been at work a few weeks and they have piled up a good many of sticks leaves stones and sand what is the use of it all it surely does not look much like a nest in the of the mound the birds have left a round opening pr it is large enough for one of them to go into and it reaches from the top of the nest to the ground at the bottom of this they make a soft bed of leaves which is their true nest then when everything is ready mrs big foot begins to lay her eggs she lays eight and puts them in a perfect circle in this soft bed at the bottom of the but she does not sit on her eggs she has had enough to do to help build the great house for them as soon as all the eggs are in their places the two birds bid good by to their house and fly away but at first they do not go far mr big foot does not forget the eggs almost every day he comes back to see that everything is just right very soon the leaves and plants in the big nest begin to decay and this makes them warm the nest is a kind of like that which make for plants in the early spring how strange that the birds should know this if the 