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SEEING THINGS OUT OF DOORS
Compiled by THE EDITORS
W
E are learning that the best way to study nature is to engage in intelligent, helpful action with living things.
Home Bird-Charts
Just now we are very much interested in the birds. The bluebird, the robin, the swallow and the brown thrasher are already here, as I write. But orioles, bobolinks, and tanagers are yet to come. It is not too late to start a bird-chart in the home. Fasten beside some window a card divided into seven columns: Name of bird; date of arrival; departure; location of nest; height of nest; material of nest; description of nest. It will take all summer to fill it out. Another pleasant plan is to plot a sketch-map of the home-grounds or the block and make a census of the birds' nests by placing a black dot where each is discovered, with some number scheme for identification.
Bird Crusades
A still better way to learn to love birds is to fight for them. We must appreciate their value. Hodge estimates that a robin is worth more than $20 each season for the worms he devours. A single pair of robins, if protected, would have a progeny of 120 million in ten years. But during the past fifteen years our song-birds have decreased at least 50 per cent. The greatest enemy of birds is the cat. A cat is responsible on the average for the death of about fifty song-birds a year. Next is the English sparrow, who pre-empts the nests of other birds and devours their eggs—"a ruffian in feathers." I would not, of course, slaughter cats and sparrows, but I would understand
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