United States or Portugal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There is no reason that the boy of to-day should not take up his share of the common burden, just as soon as he is old enough to wander alone through the woods. Let him be taught in precise terms that he must not rob birds' nests, and that he must not shoot song-birds, woodpeckers and kingfishers with a 22-calibre rifle, or any other gun.
The next order, that of the perching birds, includes all our common song-birds, such as the robin, bluebird, and blackbird, as well as a few larger birds, like the crow. The scratching birds form another order, including our domestic fowls and many wild game-birds.
Some of the hawks and owls are very destructive to song-birds, and members of the grouse family. In 159 stomachs of sharp-shinned hawks, 99 contained song-birds and woodpeckers. In 133 stomachs of Cooper's hawks, 34 contained poultry or game birds, and 52 contained other birds. The game birds included 8 quail, 1 ruffed grouse and 5 pigeons.
It was an artistic masterpiece which the wild son of the plains had, with the aid of a leaf, stolen from the mouth of the sweetest of song-birds. All those fairy warblings, those plaintive challenging tones, those enchanting trills, which no one has ever written down, he could imitate so faithfully, so naturally, that he deceived even his lurking comrades.
Yer kin kill Hawks an' Crows an' Jays, fur they kill other birds, an' Rabbits an' Coons, fur they are fair game; but I don't want to hear of yer killin' any Squirrels or Chipmunks or Song-birds, an' if ye do I'll stop the hull thing an' bring ye back to wurruk, an' use the rawhoide on tap o' that." The First Night and Morning
These islands were beautiful with trees and flowers, metal shone and crystals sparkled on their ledges, sweet fruits grew in plenty, and song-birds flitted over them. In wonder and delight the hunter would speed toward them in his canoe, but as he neared their turfy banks the jealous manitou, who kept these fairy lands for his own pleasure, would throw down a fog and shut them out of sight.
Yet these also are the love-songs of their kind, and the hen ostrich doubtless finds more music in the thunderous note of her lord than in the faint melody of such song-birds as her native Africa provides. The nightingale sings to his mate while she is sitting on her olive-green eggs perching on a low branch of the tree, at foot of which the slender nest is hidden in the undergrowth.
It is far deeper than any gladness which has its sources in the outer world, and it abides when joys have vanished, and all the song-birds of the spring are silent in the winter of the soul. 'Blessed are the poor ... for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. The bulk of the remaining Beatitudes point onward to a future; this deals with the present.
Our long-faded trails lie buried under wide alfalfa-fields and the paved streets of western Kansas towns. From the far springs that quenched our burning thirst comes water, trickling through a nickel faucet into a marble basin, now. Where the fierce sun seared our eyeballs, in a treeless, barren waste, green groves, atune with song-birds, cast long swaths of shade on verdant sod.
Nevertheless, the little mouthful of meat that swells out the breasts of some song-birds is too often the cause of their death. Larks and robins in particular are brought to market in hundreds. But fortunately the Ouzel has no enemy so eager to eat his little body as to follow him into the mountain solitudes. I never knew him to be chased even by hawks.
Word Of The Day