Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1902-01-31
FEEDING BABY BIRDS.
QUEER WAYS IN WHICH FLEOCLlNCS
TAKE NoURiSHMENT.

III you get up very, very early in the
morning-long befors breakfast-so
very early, indeed, that the sun has
not yet risen, you will hear the birds.
| You hear them through the day, of
course, but they do not sing nearly so
much nor so sweetly after the sun has
risen.
And if you are very gentle and qui-
ct, and know how to go where the
birds are, you may see the little birds
going to school or having their break
fasts. For birds have to go to school
just as boys and girls do, only they
learn different things.
They have breakfast shortly after
sunrise. And it is very interesting to
see the different ways and the differ
ent things they eat.
If you watch a nestful of young
robins-queer, blinky, bald things,
with great thick yellow folds of skin
around the edges of their wide mouths
you will find that they eat worms
There is a little chuckling call, and
a hard working mother checks in the
air and comes softly down on the edge
of the nest she built earlier in the
spring.
Five wide mouths stretch up blind
ly. Two only get anything; the moth
er robin ships her worm and pokes
the halves into the red throats so
hard one would think it might hurt
Then away she goes with reassur-
ing "twit," after a careful look round
to see that no boys, cats or snakes
| are near enough to get her little chill
dren before she can return again.
| Now half a worm is no more than q
spoonful of porridge in young rob-
! ms breakfast, and SO mamma has to
make trip after trip to feed her brood
But a pigeons breakfast custom
is even more curious, for the birdlets
get their meals out of mammals
throat. The fuzzy heads go poking
into her stretched mouth-one would
think the down must tickle her-and
get the grain that has already been
chewed by the sharp pebbles in the
mother birds crop.
After breakfast school time comes
for birds. The two things they never
have to learn are the two things over
which little girls have most of their
troubles-they don't have to be told
to wash their faces and comb their
hair. because they know by instinct
that when this is done they will be
moro comfortable. And they are not
taught to brush their teeth. because
they haven't any.
But they have to learn TO fly, to fol-
low, to talk, to hunt good food, and
not to eat what is bad for their lit
tie tummies, and follow the seasons,
! il they are migratory families. Peo-
| pie used to think that young birds
needed no training, but came from the
egg with heads as wise as their dad
dies had.
But when people began to get ac-
quainted more with the birds they
found this was not so. There are GER
tain birds who are very wise, OF
course. You may have seen the bird
called the fly catcher-Lay's fly CATCH
er. 1t is a bird common in Colorado.
A whole nest full of little fly catchers
has been known to stretch wings for
the first time and fly away togetherthe
width of the street-to tall cotton
wood tree And this was without any
lesson or assistance from the mother
bird. The instinct of the little Great
ures was all that guided them. And
weren't they proud.
Once a man tried to be mother
bird That is, he tried to hatch out
birds eggs by heat and to find out
whether the young bird would know
as much as other birds who had moth
ers. And he found that they really
did know a good deal, but some things
they never did learn. They were not
afraid of people rs the other birds
are, and they could not understand
the calls of their own mother.
Sometimes q mother bird, when she
thinks it time for her babies to fly,
will drive them away from their
homes or push them off the nest out
into the world. But more often the
little folk fail from the nest when
rocked too hard by the breeze or the
horne grows too crowded and one lit
tie one is pushed out. Then the moth
ers and fathers show great anxiety
Tor the little ones and they do all
hey can to help them back to the nest
or to teach them how to use their
wings. Mother birds love their chill
dren just as any mother loves her
child.
One time a happy little family Of
robins lived in a tree just beneath
q window where a little girl watched
them day after day. The bird chill
dren grew very fast, just as all chill
dren do, and as there were five of
them they soon quite filled the nest.
One day an unusually heavy hail
storm came up, just as they sometimes
do in the spring The little girl wor-
ried great deal about those tiny
birds, for she was very fond of them
and was afraid they would be hurt
by the hail. She went to the window
to see If they were safe in the nest.
4 4. IL.