The Children's Book of Birds Part 9

She went to a bathing-dish that the people of the house kept filled with water for the birds, jumped into it, and got her legs very wet. Then she flew to the road, and tramped around in the dust and dirt.

In a short time her legs had a good coating of mud, which she carefully picked off with her bill, and took to the nest she was building.

This she did a great many times, and the lady who told me of it watched her till she had as much mud as she needed.

A bird often shows sense by the way she repairs a nest that has been thrown out of place. Sometimes she will add a new stay, tying the nest to a stronger limb. One sparrow, whose nest broke loose, put so many stays to the branch above that they made a little roof like a tent over it.

Another way a bird shows reason is in seeing the advantage of a new place. A pair of swallows lived far out in the West, hundreds of miles from any house. They had no doubt always nested in a cave, or a hole in a tree. But one day they found a house put up. It was a mere shed, to be used as a blacksmith shop, by a party of men who were looking over the country.

At once the birds saw how nice it would be to have a roof over their heads. And although there was a big fire, and the noise of men at work, they built the nest over the anvil, and reared the family in safety.

Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs have shown that they can learn. Some of them have found an easier way to get food than to dig through the bark of trees for it.

The flicker, or golden-winged woodp.e.c.k.e.r, has learned that ants and other insects are good to eat, and now he does not think of digging into bark any more.

The red-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.r has learned to catch flies like a common flycatcher. The yellow-bellied, or sapsucker, cuts holes in the trees, and eats the insects that come to feed on the sweet sap that drips from them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLICKER]

Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs have also learned to cut a hole through a board and nest inside a building, instead of drilling a deep hole in the trunk of a tree for a nest.

Birds show intelligence when they draw us away from their young ones, by acting as if they were hurt and not able to fly. I have already spoken about that.

Sometimes when a bird is caught he will lie quiet and pretend to be dead. But all the time he is looking out for a chance to fly away.

A man who watched birds very closely once saw an interesting instance of their intelligence. They were two of the birds who get their food on the seash.o.r.e by turning over stones and eating the creatures hidden under them. They had found a big dead fish thrown up on the beach and half buried in sand. Under such a fish they were sure they should find food, so they went to work to turn it over. The fish was three and a half feet long, and the birds were about as big as our sandpipers. So it was a hard thing to do.

First they pushed against it with their beaks and breast, but it did not move. Then they went around the other side and scratched away a good deal of sand from under the fish, and went back and tried again to turn it over. Still it was too heavy to stir.

Again they ran around the other side, sc.r.a.ped away more sand, and tried it once more. They kept up this work for half an hour, but did not succeed in stirring the great fish.

At this time the man, who had hidden himself to watch them, saw another bird coming. The two little workers greeted him with joyful cries, to which he replied in the same tones. Then all three set to work on the heavy fish. They dug more sand out from the lower side, and then pushed against the upper side with all their strength. They lifted it a few inches, but it fell back.

At last, after resting a few minutes, without moving from their places, they worked it in this way. They rested their b.r.e.a.s.t.s on the sand, put their beaks under, and lifted. When the fish was raised several inches, they held it with their beaks and pushed their b.r.e.a.s.t.s against it, when over it went, down the little pitch they had made.

They could not stop, and they went with it, but at once came back and found enough to pay them for their hard work.

One who really watches birds to see what they are doing will see many actions that show intelligence and reason.

HOW HE IS MADE

XXI

HIS BODY

DID you ever think how well the bird is made to suit his life? Look at him.

To fit him to move through the air in flying, his shape is the same that men make their boats to move through water. It is sharp in front to cut his way as he goes through, for even the air needs to be cut.

It is narrower toward the back, and as he flies, the feet are drawn up or trail behind, and even the feathers lie backward. All this is so he can go swiftly through the air, and nothing, not even a feather, will hold him back.

To keep his body upright, so that he will not be top-heavy and tip over as he flies, his weight is mostly below the wings.

If we should try to go through the air as fast as a bird goes, we should find it very hard to breathe. But the bird is made for it. When you come to study his anatomy, you will see what a wonderful little creature he is.

He can sing while he is working very hard to fly upward. If you will try to sing while running up a hill, you will see how hard it is to do that.

A bird's head is joined to his neck at one place, something like a hinge. Other animals, like dogs and cats, have two hinges, or places of joining. That is why a bird is able to turn his head around so far that he can look down his own back. No other creature can do so.

Because of this, he is able to dress every feather on his body, and to sleep with his head laid back on his shoulder.

Nearly all birds have some of their bones hollow, and air-sacs, or pockets, under the skin. These sacs they can fill with air and make themselves light, so that those who live in the water cannot sink, but float like a cork.

Men who study the way birds are made do not yet know all the uses of the hollow bones and air-sacs. That is one of the things left for you young folk to find out.

Birds who get their food in marshes, or the edge of the water, have long legs for wading. They have also long necks, so they can pick up food from the ground.

Birds who swim have webs between the toes, that turn their feet into paddles.

Birds have very large gullets. In many cases the gullet leads into a place called the crop, where food is kept before it goes into the stomach. Sometimes the food is made soft in the crop, and then fed to the young ones, as I told you.

Birds have no teeth, yet they eat hard seeds, like acorns and grains of corn. To break these up, and get them ready for the stomach, they have a gizzard, which is a sort of grinding-mill. And to help in the work of grinding they swallow small stones.

One of the wonderful things about birds is the height at which they can live, and not only live, but fly. A man cannot go higher than twenty-two or twenty-three thousand feet, while moving about or exercising, because the air is so rare he cannot breathe. The highest a man was ever known to go and live, it is said, was less than thirty thousand feet, and that was in a balloon, where he did not move.

But birds go a good deal higher than this, and can fly--which is violent exercise--at that height. It is thought by some that the thinness of the air may be the cause of the great speed with which birds fly in that region. But there is still much to be found out about this.

Besides the marvels of flight, birds have other powers almost as strange. Many of them can fly under water with perfect ease, and, more than that, they can, when they wish, sink slowly till nothing is left above water but their beaks, to breathe. And they can stay so as long as they choose, keeping still in one spot, without moving.

A cormorant in a zoological garden, who wanted to catch some of the swallows skimming over the pond, sank his body till only his head was out, and held himself there perfectly still.

Birds who are hunted, as geese, have been known to save their lives in that way, by sinking their body under water, leaving in sight only the tip of the bill, which is so small it is not readily seen.

To do such things, birds must be able to make their bodies heavy when they choose, as well as light, which we know they are able to do by filling their air-sacs with air.

There are many things still to be found out about the powers of birds.

XXII