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Nor, lovely as they are to my eye, will they be less beautiful to the winter chippies, the goldfinches, juncos and a host of other seed-eating birds who will find them bountifully spread for their delectation all the winter through. On rainy days I like to bring these brawn stems into camp and, setting them by the glow of the open fire, see them bloom as they dry out.
He showed particular interest in seed-eating birds, apparently not understanding how they could enjoy such food. Though full of bluster and pretense, he was as gentle as any bird in the room, never presumed on his size as the biggest, and, though liking to tease and worry, never really touching one. The smallest only needed to stand and face him to see that it was all bluster and fun.
All seed-eating birds are also gravel-eaters; and the pebbles and gravel they eat are mostly silex, or the material from which our best buhrstones are made. These pass into the gizzard, or pyloric division of the bird's stomach, where they are utilized, the same as we utilize our buhrstones.
"Are there no bright-colored birds that live all winter where the trees are bare?" asked Rap. "Yes, three the Cardinal, the Crossbill, and the Pine Grosbeak. They are seed-eating birds, and all belong to the Sparrow family.
Unquestionably it would be much more difficult to keep a kingfisher alive and healthy during a long sea-voyage than a common seed-eating bird; but the same may be said of woodpeckers, cuckoos, warblers, and, in fact, of any species that subsists in a state of nature on a particular kind of animal food.
On the mainland, over on the right bank of the river, we were amused by the eccentric gyrations and evolutions of flocks of small seed-eating birds, who in their flight wheeled into compact columns with such military precision as to give us the impression that they must be guided by a leader, and all directed by the same signal.
They are true seed-eating birds, and their beaks are short, stout, and thick cone-shaped it is called, like that of the White-throated Sparrow you learned about one day. This enables them to crack the various seeds upon which they live at all times except in the nesting season, when few seeds are ripe.
The developing conger-eels find a host of enemies which greatly deplete their numbers before they can grow even into infancy. An annual plant does not produce a million living offspring in twenty years because seeds do not always fall upon favorable soil, nor do they always receive the proper amount of sunlight and moisture, or escape the eye of birds and other seed-eating animals.
"They merely roved about during the winter months, and had no long journey to make before they reached the home trees again, and then the hardy seed-eating birds can return from the South much earlier than their frailer kin." "Last year," said Rap, "when the men were chopping trees in the great wood beyond the lake, the miller went up one day to hunt coons and took me with him.
They had velvety brown caps on, and said 'chip, chip, chip' as they hopped along, and as they didn't seem afraid of me I threw out some bread-crumbs and they picked them up. Then I knew, to begin with, that they must be seed-eating birds." "How did you know that?" asked Nat. "Bread-crumbs aren't seeds!" "No, but bread is made of ground-up wheat-seed!
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