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How do you like that? Yes, you too, Rap. By and by, when you know these hundred birds by name and by sight, you will be so far along on the road into Birdland that you can choose your own way, and branch off right and left on whatever path seems most attractive to you; but then you will need big books, and have to learn long hard Latin names."
"As we have been talking about the insect-killing that Citizen Bird does in order to pay his rent and taxes, as a good citizen should, I will tell you of the six guilds in Birdland, into which these citizens are divided in order to do their work thoroughly." "What is a guild?" asked Rap.
On alighting he uttered a low, hollow chuck suggestive of the sepulchral. Another notch had to be cut in the tally-stick of my ornithological journey I had learned how the whip-poor-will takes his nocturnal dinner of moths and beetles, and I felt that there was still such a thing as news to be gathered in birdland.
The Stork looked up in surprise as the wonderful stranger approached. "Bless me!" he exclaimed, "whom have we here? I thought I knew all Birdland, but I never before saw such a freak as this!" "I am the King. I am to be the new King," announced the Crow. "Is there any bird more gorgeous than I?" "Truly, I hope not," said the Stork gravely. "Yet the Woodcock is a very foolish bird.
He had caught and killed so many that at last King Robin of Birdland issued invitations to all his feathered subjects and to the beasts of the field, asking them to a meeting at which they might discuss the best means of putting Sigli to death, or punishing him in some other way, for the cruelty of which he was guilty towards them.
"It will be difficult for you to mistake this little blue-coal for any other bird. He is 'true blue, which is as rare a color among birds its it is among flowers. He is the banner-bearer of Birdland also, and loyally floats the tricolor from our trees and telegraph wires; for, besides being blue, is he not also red and white?"
Are there such things?" clamored the children together. "The mother-bird is worrying; come over under the mulberry tree and I will tell you about this wonderful nest. "There are some very ill-mannered shiftless Citizens in Birdland, called Cowbirds," began the Doctor; "you will learn about them when we come to the family to which they belong.
Male: very glossy black, excepting the head and neck, which are shiny dark brown like burnt coffee. Female: dusky brown, the lower parts lighter than the upper. A Citizen of the entire United States. A Ground Gleaner and a Weed Warrior, to some extent, but a bad neighbor, a worse parent, a homeless vagabond, and an outlaw in Birdland.
Let a hawk come gliding silently and slyly down the vale, and before he gets too near some keen little eye espies him, the alarm is sounded, and the whole company scurries into the thickets or trees for safety. The chickadees and titmice seem to be a sort of sentry for the company. A large part of the time in birdland is spent in solving the "bread-and-butter" problem.
"You certainly have to remember the laws of Birdland, as well as their exceptions," answered the Doctor; "but when you have once recognized and named a bird you will carry its picture always in your mind, for the Redstarts that you will see when you are very old men and women, will be like the one that is dancing along the walk now." "Why do they call this Warbler a 'Redstart'?" asked Dodo.
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