What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes Part 43

The Chaffinch

The chaffinch has to re-learn his song every spring, and for a fortnight or more you will hear him trying his voice very sweetly and softly, but as soon as he has acquired his song in perfection, it will be so strong and piercing that on fine days he often has to be banished from the sitting-room. He should not, however, be exposed too much to sun and wind; a cloth thrown over half the cage will make a shelter. The chaffinch is another bird that should never be put in a bell-shaped cage. He should occasionally have flies and other insects given him. He is lively and hardy and a very gay companion.

The Goldfinch

We remember a goldfinch that became very tame, perching on his owner's hands and taking seed from her lips. Goldfinches should never be kept in bell-shaped cages--which make them giddy--but should have one with a square flat top. Along this they will run head downward. They are such active birds that they need plenty of s.p.a.ce. They chatter all day long and are very cheery, and they are very beautiful in their brown, gold, and scarlet coats. In a wild state the goldfinch feeds chiefly on the seeds of weeds and thistles, groundsel, and dandelion, and he is therefore a friend to the farmer, but in captivity be will thrive on canary and German rape with several hemp-seeds daily, and now and then lettuce, thistle-seed, and fruit.

The Bullfinch

The bullfinch is squarely built, with a black head and pink breast. No bird can be more affectionate and intelligent. He will learn to pipe tunes if you put him in the dark and whistle a few bars of some easy melody to him over and over again; and he soon gets a number of fascinating tricks. After a while you will be able to let him out of the cage at meal-times, when he will hop about from plate to plate and steal little t.i.t-bits. No bird is so fond of sitting on its owner's shoulder as the bullfinch can be. Also, unhappily, few birds are so liable to fatal illness. A bullfinch can be apparently quite well one minute and the next you find him lying at the bottom of the cage.

Over-eating is often the cause of his death, so that one must be careful. Hemp-seed and apple-pips, for instance, which he loves, should be given in moderation. Rape and millet, lettuce and ripe fruit suit him best. Gardeners are great enemies of this st.u.r.dy little bird on account of the damage he does amongst fruit-trees, but he probably does a great deal more good than he does harm by eating insects which are fatal to plants.

The Yellow Bunting

The yellow bunting (or yellow hammer) can be a pet; and he has the sweetest little whispering song. If you have a caged bunting, his seed should be soaked in cold water for some hours before it is given to him, and he must have the yoke of a hard-boiled egg, meal-worms, ants'

eggs, and any insects you can catch for him. He must also have plenty of opportunities for bathing, and as much fresh air without draughts as possible.

The Blackbird

The blackbird is delicate when caged and must have plenty of nutritious food, bread and milk, boiled vegetables, ripe fruit, insects, and snails. He is a thirsty bird and needs plenty of water.

Birds of all kinds especially like cocoanut (though they will come to the window-sill simply for bread crumbs). The cocoanut should be sawn in two, and a hole bored through each half, about an inch from the edge. A strong string is then threaded in and they are hung from the bough of a tree. They should be hung rather high up, on a bough reaching as far out from the trunk as possible, so as to avoid all risk from the cat. The birds frequent elm-trees more than any others, because the rough bark contains many insects, but you may choose any kind of tree, as close to your windows as you like. The birds will keep pecking at the cocoanut all day long and will soon want a new one. If you have no tree near the house you might fasten a cord across the outer frame of your window and tie the pieces of nut to that. The birds would soon find out the cocoa-nut and come to it, and bread crumbs could also be put on the window-sill to attract them. Or, if you have a veranda, they could be hung up there, if you could make them safe from the cat. Mrs. Earle, in her book _More Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden_, gives elaborate directions for an arrangement in a veranda or balcony of cocoanuts, etc., for the birds. Lumps of fat will do as well as cocoanut. Some birds also greatly love a bone to pick at--an uncooked one with plenty of fat on it, which the butcher will probably be glad to give you if you ask him and explain its purpose. It can be hung up in a tree or merely laid on the window-sill.

The Robin

In the ordinary way one would not keep robins at all. They are so tame and fond of the company of human beings that they will come regularly to the door for crumbs every morning and never be far off at any time.

But if a wounded robin is found or a nest is abandoned (probably owing to the death of the mother at the cat's hands) just before the young birds are ready to fly, you might pop them in a cage. They do not often thrive long in captivity, even if the confinement does not seem irksome, but to keep one until it was strong enough to be let loose would be a kindness. Still there have been many cases of happy tame robins. The best food for them is bread crumbs, grated carrot, yoke of egg and sponge-cake mixed together, the carrot making the mixture moist enough. A few insects daily are advisable. Robins are such quarrelsome birds that it is impossible to keep two of them in an aviary, or even to keep one robin with birds weaker than himself.

Perhaps the best way to treat a pet robin is to let him fly all over the house in the winter. He may one day fly away altogether in the spring, but if he is alive he is almost certain to come back again when the cold weather begins.

Garden Robins

Robins in the garden are so pretty, so cheeky, so sweetly musical, and are so friendly to man (in spite of their arrogance and selfishness among birds) that they ought to be encouraged. As the only way of encouraging wild birds is to feed them, we have to try and give them what they like best. Robins are quite content with bread crumbs only.

They will eat sop if they can get nothing else; but they prefer crumbs, and not too dry. For an especial treat they like fat bacon beyond everything: cooked bacon, that has been boiled, not fried. It should be mixed up very small, and the bread also crumbled into tiny morsels, for robins like to eat very nicely and daintily. Robins are pleased to have crumbs given them all the seasons through, though in the autumn they can very well take care of themselves.

Each robin has his own special domain, which any other robin invades at his peril. The robins that come to the window for food are those that belong to that particular side of the house and no other. This means that there are other robins is different parts of the garden which will have to be fed in their own special localities. You will soon find out where these are, even if you have not already been guided to them by their songs. Robins like their food scattered always in the same place, or under the same tree, and, as nearly as you can, at the same time. Then you will find them on the lookout for you, and if you take always the same basket (a rather shallow flat one which stands firmly) and, putting it on the ground, go a few steps away, you will see them hop into it. After a few days they will probably get tame enough to come into the basket while it is in your hand; only you must have a little patience at first, and hold it very still, and of course you must not have previously scattered any food on the ground.

Birds in the Garden

This brings us to the other garden birds which we have no wish to put in cages, but which it is well to be as kind to as possible. In winter, when there is a frost, to feed them is absolutely necessary; but at all times it is well that they should know that you are not enemies (of which they have so many), but their friends. The following notes, together with the foregoing pa.s.sage on feeding robins, on birds in the garden have been prepared far this book:--

"Birds are grateful all the year through for a shallow pan of water, which they can drink from and use also as a bath. And the bees, too, will be glad to come and get a sip of water, for they also are thirsty things. A small round yellow earthenware pan is excellent for the thrushes and blackbirds, but it is as well to provide a smaller one, say an ordinary shallow pie-dish, for the robins and little birds.

These should be refilled twice a day, at least, in summer time. You can place the pans on the gra.s.s or path, where you can see them comfortably from the house, but not nearer than you can help, because the blackbirds are rather shy, and it would be a pity to make drinking too great an adventure for them.

"Birds are thankful for a little feeding right through the spring, both when the mother bird is sitting on the nest and the father has to forage for two, and when the young ones are hatched and there are at once many more mouths to fill. In the summer too, if it should be unduly wet and cold, or unduly hot and dry, and grubs and insects scarce, the young birds are pleased to find a meal ready for them. But in the winter it is a positive duty to feed the birds; for remember that when the ground is covered with snow, or frozen hard, they can get no insects, and thus, after all the berries have gone, they will starve unless they are helped with other food.

"Almost every household has enough waste sc.r.a.ps, if they are collected carefully, to give the birds a good meal once a day. Bread, of course, will form the chief part, but nothing comes amiss to them, however tiny. Morsels of suet, dripping, shreds of fat, meat, and fish, and cheese rind also, all mixed up together, are an especial treat. The mince should be well mixed with the bread crumbs, or all may not get a fair share. Crusts, or any hard, dry bits of bread, can be scalded into sop (though, unlike chickens, wild birds do not seem to like it hot), and a little piece of dripping or fat, soaked with the sop, makes it more tasty for them. If the supply of bread be short, the birds will be very pleased with chickens' rice. It should be the 'second quality' kind, in the brown husk, which can be procured from most corn-dealers. But this is hardly necessary excepting in a long hard frost. Starlings are especially fond of bones, and they will esteem it a favor if any which have been used in making soup, and are not required for the dog, are thrown out to them on the ground. Their joyous chattering over them is quite cheering, even on the dreariest winter's day. They are also grateful for the rind of a ham or piece of bacon, after it has been boiled. This should be thrown out to them whole, not cut up in little pieces. They are equally fond of the bones and skin remains of a 'dried' haddock.

"For the bolder birds, such as robins, you will like to put some food on the window-sills, and also on the path or gra.s.s close to the house.

But remember the more timid ones, and scatter it in other parts of the garden as well.

"Sparrows, of course, deserve their food as well as any of the others; but it is rather hard to see them taking every morning much more than their share, while the less courageous or impudent birds (who also sing to you) get none. It seems impossible to prevent this, though Mr.

Phil. Robinson, in his book _Garden, Orchard, and Spinney_ (in the chapter ent.i.tled 'The Famine is my Garden'), recommends scattering some oatmeal mixed with a few bread crumbs on one side of the house, to keep the sparrows occupied, whilst you feed the other birds elsewhere. Sparrows, however, have a way of being on every side of the house at once. Still, if you feed your birds daily, and as nearly at the same time as possible (they like it as soon as may be after your own breakfast), you will find them on the lookout for you, and they will manage to get a good share, if they all start fair, in spite of the sparrows. In a hard frost they are thankful for a second meal, but it should not be later than two o'clock, because birds go to bed very early in cold weather, and the food would be frozen too hard for them to be able to eat it next morning.

"One word more. There is great danger of birds being caught by a cat while they are busy with their food, especially if near the bushes.

The only possible protection against this which you can take is to see that your own cat is indoors and is therefore not the offender."

READING

All persons who care very much for reading will find their way naturally to the books most likely to please them; left alone in a library they are never disappointed. For them no advice is necessary.

Nor is advice important to those who have opportunities to compare notes on reading with friends who have similar tastes. For instance, two boys may fall to talking of books. "Have you read _David Balfour_?" one will say. "No; who's it by?" "Stevenson." "What else did he write?" "Well, he wrote _Treasure Island_." "I've read that. If _David Balfour_ is anything like that, I must get it." He gets it; and thus, either by asking others whose taste he can trust, or by going steadily on through each author who satisfies him, he will always have as much good reading as he needs.

But there are still other readers--who have no real instinct for books, or no memory for authors' names, or few opportunities of comparing notes--for whom a list of books that are worth trying, books which have been tested and found all right by thousands of readers, ought to be very useful. In the following pages a list of this kind has been drawn up. It is very far indeed from anything like completeness--many good authors are not mentioned at all, and others have written many more books than are here placed under their names--but those chosen are in most cases their best, and it will be very easy for readers who want more to find out other t.i.tles. The books named are for the most part not new. But before children read new books they read old; the new ones come later. What is suggested here is a ground-work. Moreover, there are so many ways for new books to suggest themselves that to attempt the impossible task of keeping pace with them here was unnecessary.

Girls are such steady readers of what are called boys' books, and boys are occasionally so much interested in what are called girls' books, that the two groups have not been separated. All that has been done is to describe the nature of each division of stories.

Fairy Tales

Nearly all the best old fairy tales are to be found in Mr. Andrew Lang's collections, of which six are mentioned:--

The Blue Fairy Book.

The Red Fairy Book.

The Pink Fairy Book.

The Green Fairy Book.

The Yellow Fairy Book.

The Orange Fairy Book.

Many families do very well with merely

Grimm's Fairy Tales.

The Arabian Nights.

Andersen's Fairy Tales.

aesop's Fables.

These are traditional. First favorites among English whimsical tales are, of course,

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland By Lewis Carroll.