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He did not seem to know that meadow mice are not seed-eaters, but that they live on grass and roots and keep well hidden beneath the ground during the day, when there is a deep fall of snow coming up out of their dens and retreats and leading a free holiday life beneath the snow, free from the danger of cats, foxes, owls, and hawks. Life then becomes a sort of picnic.
I will tell you a secret I am thinking of eating no birds but English Sparrows in future!" "So you have been eating other birds?" said Dodo. "Y-e-s, I have, but not many more than the Shrike takes, and mostly seed-eaters hardly ever an insect-eating song bird. Do you know how many bad insects I eat?"
"I do not wonder that you think so, my lassie; and so they would be if they ate birds only; but the Shrike earns his right to be thought a good Citizen by devouring mice and many kinds of insects, like beetles, which injure orchards and gardens. The comparatively few birds that he destroys are mostly seed-eaters not the most valuable kinds to the farmer.
Robins do not breed in flocks, but in pairs. Every gas is a vacuum to every other gas; and every locality is a vacuum to the different species of birds that breed there. The seed-eaters, the fruit-eaters, the insect-eaters, and the omnivorous feeders, like the robin in other words, the sparrows, the flycatchers, the warblers may and do all live together in harmony in the same narrow area.
There are three or four species belonging to the Old World; and a great many to North America. Moreover there is a considerable difference in the habits of these species, which has led zoologists to separate them into several genera. One genus, called the Seed-eaters, is a very curious kind.
More sombre hued seed-eaters which live their lives in the Park are towhees, swamp, song, field, and chipping sparrows. The bank and barn swallows skim over field and pond all through the summer, gleaning their insect harvest from the air, and building their nests in the places from which they have taken their names.
As they are almost all insect-eaters, they are even more useful than the stay-at-home Citizens, who are chiefly seed-eaters or cannibals. Winter Visitors. "The birds who come down from the North in severe weather, but do not stay in one place for any particular time, arriving one day and disappearing the next.
He has pockets in his cheeks just as you have, and he makes a home down in the ground very similar to yours. All the family do this, and all of them sleep through the winter. While they are great seed-eaters they also eat a great many insects and worms, and some of them even are guilty of killing and eating the babies of birds that nest on the ground, and also young mice.
They are the best birds for pets, because they are seed-eaters, and it is easy to supply the food they like. "Some winter day, or even late in autumn, you may see on your walks, another red bird a near relation of the Pine Grosbeak; in fact, the two often flock together. This bird is called the American Crossbill." The Pine Grosbeak Length about nine inches.
For one thing we like thistledown to line our nest, and there isn't any thistledown yet. Then, there is no sense in raising a family until there is plenty of the right kind of food, and you know we Goldfinches live mostly on seeds. I'll venture to say that we are the greatest seed-eaters anywhere around.
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