Citizen Bird: Scenes from Bird-Life in Plain English for Beginners. Elliott Coues
meaning. Do you know what it is, Olive?" But Olive was not sure, and the Doctor asked her to go to his study and look for the word in the big dictionary.
In a few minutes she returned with a slip of paper from which her father read: "Citizen—a member of a nation, especially of a republic; one who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it."
"Now, if you listen carefully I think I can prove to you that every bird you can find is such a citizen of this country, and show you why we should protect him.
"I told you the other day how the body of a bird was planned and built to fill a place no other animal could take. Thus by his habits and character every bird fills a place as a citizen of our Republic, keeping the laws and doing work for the land that House People, with all their wisdom, cannot do. Every such fellow-animal of ours, besides having eyes to see with, and a brain which, if it does not tell him as many things as our brains tell us, yet teaches him all that he need know to follow the laws that Heart of Nature has set for him, has the same feelings and affections as ourselves. Parent birds love each other and their little ones, and often lose their lives in trying to protect them. They build their homes with as much care and skill as House People use in making theirs. Then they work hard, very hard indeed, to collect food to feed their children, for bird children are, oh, so hungry! They grow very quickly, and must eat constantly from morning until night.
"With them it is breakfast, luncheon, dinner, five-o'clock tea, and supper, with a great many other meals between times that would not be wholesome for House Children. So you can see for yourselves that we may well call the bird a fellow-being."
"Yes," said Rap, his eyes beaming as if he had something to tell, "some birds work as hard as mother does. I watched a pair of Robins all one day last spring, when I was sick. They had a nest in a bush by our kitchen window, where I could see it well, and all day long either the mother or the father came about every two minutes with something for the little ones to eat. I timed them by the clock until I was nearly dizzy, and they seemed to do the same thing every day until the young ones flew away. Then they went over to the grape vines, made a new nest, and raised four more the same way"—and then Rap stopped suddenly, as if he feared that he had been talking too much.
"That is all true," said the Doctor, looking very happy at finding that one of his listeners not only saw for himself but remembered and thought about what he had seen. "If you have used your eyes so well, my lad, when we come to the bird stories I shall expect you to tell some of them yourself." And the Doctor held out his hand to the child with a look that sent him to bed to dream happy dreams for many a night.
The children gazed at Rap in surprise. It was a new idea that a poor little fellow like him should know more than they, who had both parents and nice clothes, and had been to school in a big city. That he should be able to tell stories about birds seemed wonderful. But they were not selfish, and instead of being jealous felt a great respect for Rap.
"Now," said the Doctor, "we will see what a good neighbor to House People a bird is, and how in working for himself he helps them also."
"How can birds possibly work to help people?" asked Dodo and Nat together; but Rap smiled to himself as if he knew something about the matter, and said, "They eat the bugs and worms and things that kill the gardens and fields."
"You are right again," said the Doctor heartily. "What is one thing that man and every other animal must have to keep him alive?"
"Food!" shouted Nat, and then grew very red, as the others laughed, because since he had been at Orchard Farm his appetite had grown so that though he ate twice as much as Olive and Dodo he seemed always hungry.
"Yes, food. Bread, meat, vegetables, and fruits, but bread first of all. What is bread made of?"
"Wheat, I think," said Nat.
"Rye, too—mother's rye-bread is drea'fly good," said Rap.
"Don't forget Mammy Bun's corn-bread," added Olive.
"All your answers are right, for many different kinds of bread are used in various parts of the country; but whether it is made from wheat-flour, or rye-flour, or corn-meal, it all grows from the ground, does it not?
"Now the next sort of food—meat, the flesh of animals—oxen, sheep, pigs, and poultry—what do they feed on?"
"Oxen eat grass and hay and meal," said Dodo, in great haste lest some one else should speak first.
"Sheep eat grass and hay too. I've seen them over in the pasture on the hill," said Nat.
"Pigs will eat any old sort of thing," said Rap. "Sour milk and snakes and swill and rats."
"Ugh!" shivered Dodo. "Are all those nasty things in sausages?" "No, Dodo," laughed the Doctor; "when pigs are shut up they eat a great many dirty things, but naturally they prefer clean food like other cattle—corn, acorns, apples, and so forth. Besides, those 'nasty things,' as you call them, turn into pork before they are put in sausages, for pigs know how to make pork. So you see that all the food of the animals whose flesh we eat comes out of the ground; and that is what the Bible means where it says, 'All flesh is grass.' But what other things are there that grow up out of the earth, tall and strong, each one holding a beautiful green screen to keep the sun from drawing all the moisture from the ground and making it too dry; shading the rivers that their waters may not waste away; some making cool bowers for House People to sit under, others bearing delicious fruits for them to eat, and all in good time yielding their bodies to make fires and give out heat to warm us?"
"Trees! Yes, trees of course," cried the children eagerly; "all kinds of trees, for trees grow apples and pears and plums and cherries and chestnuts and firewood too."
"Now what is there that preys upon all this vegetable life—upon every plant, from the grass to the tree, destroying them all equally?"
"Bugs and worms and all kinds of crawlers and flyers and hoppers," said Rap.
"Yes, every plant has an insect enemy which feeds upon its life juices. So a set of animals has been developed by Heart of Nature to hold the plant destroyers in check, and these animals are the birds.
"Man may do all he can to protect his gardens, his orchards, his fields and forests, but if the birds did not help him the insects that work by night and day—tapping at the root, boring inside the bark, piercing the very heart of the plant, chewing off the under side of leaves, nipping off the buds—would make the earth bare and brown instead of green and blooming. Yet House People, both young and old, forget this. They shoot and frighten away the birds, either because some few of their feathered friends take grapes or other fruits and berries by way of pay, or merely from thoughtlessness, to see how many they can hit."
"Do all birds eat bugs and such things?" asked Nat. "Olive said she used to put out grain and crumbs in winter for some kinds."
"Some birds eat animal food and some seed food, while others eat both; but almost all birds feed their babies upon insects. The nesting season is chiefly in spring, when all plants begin or renew their growth. Spring is also the season when the eggs of many insects hatch out and when others come from the cocoons in which they have slept all winter.
"Then the farmer begins his annual war upon them, and day after day he fights the Battle of the Bugs. But if he stops to think, and remembers that Heart of Nature has a use for everything, he will win this battle against the creeping, crawling, squirming regiments more easily. For above him in the trees of his forest, in the hedgerows and bushes of his pasture and garden, on the rafters of his barn, even in the chimney of his house, live the birds, willing and eager to help him. And all the wages they ask is permission to work for a living and protection from those of his fellowmen who covet the Oriole and Cardinal for their gay feathers and the Robin and Meadowlark for pot-pie."
"Singing-bird pie is wicked. I would like to pound them all," said Dodo, striking her fists together, as Nat did sometimes, not making it clear whether it was pie or people she wanted to pound. "But uncle, it is right to eat some birds—Ducks and Chickens and Geese and Turkeys."
"Yes, Dodo, they belong