SOME PEOPLE WE LIKE TO KNOW.
We are always interested in our nearest neighbors. "Who lives in the
next house?" we ask. "Are they pleasant persons to know?" and "How
many children are there?"
These are questions one commonly asks. But we are not speaking just
now of men and women and children who live near us on our street. We
are speaking of people all about us in our yard, and in your yard
perhaps,--little, winged, beautiful people, who make it so pleasant
with song and chirp and flutter,--the birds.
We like to think of the birds as creatures better and more lovable
than lizards and worms and other crawling things. We know a lady who
calls them "Angels," because they have wings and seem to fly far off
into heaven. No one ever jumps away from a bird, as some foolish
people do from a snake or a mouse. Most snakes and mice are as
harmless as birds, but they do not win their way to our hearts as the
birds do.
The yard or field that has the most trees and shrubs in it will also
have the most and the merriest birds. Very few birds choose to live
on a desert. They like shade and grass and flowers as well as we do,
and fruit trees and berry bushes, and the sound of life and fun.
When we see a big tree chopped down, we think of the birds who will
miss it. Watch them yourselves. See how they light on the fallen
boughs, and peep sadly under the wilting leaves, and twitter about
their loss. Birds are like ourselves; they like to live in the places
that are familiar to them, because here they feel at home and safe.
We sometimes think we can hear them singing, "My country, 'tis of
thee,--of thee I sing."
Their "country" is our yard, and your yard, or the woods or the city
streets and house roofs, and they love it. We should respect their
rights and let them have their little "America" in peace. We can
apply the Golden Rule as well to our treatment of the birds as to one
another.
There are enemies which are very troublesome to the birds. Two or
three hawks, some owls, and a few boys, delight in scaring or killing
them. We have never seen a little girl harm a bird, and we know many
boys, as well, who would not hurt a bird "on purpose." Their worst
enemies are the cats.
These enemies do not come sailing over into the birds' country in
ships, or marching up the coast in troops, carrying guns and beating
drams and making a great noise. They are cowardly, sneaking enemies.
They jump one at a time over hedges and fences, and they crawl under
bushes barefoot, and dart across the street when no one is looking.
They are so still, gliding on their soft feet, that no one of the
bird family can hear them coming. So whole nestfuls of baby birds are
gone before their mothers know it.
Cats have learned that they are not welcome in our yard. If one of
them slips in before we are up in the morning, the birds tell us by
a sort of "shriek," and we hurry to help them. We have seen six or
seven different kinds of birds crying at a cat and flying at him at
one time. They even nip at his back, and dart up so quickly that the
cat has no chance to spring at them.
The orioles and mocking-birds are our best watch-dogs, screaming
with very angry voices at sight of a cat, and warning all the other
birds in the yard to "look out." In the orchard there were some stray
cats that nobody owned, and we thought it right to shoot the hungry,
thieving things. One mocking-bird, who had been robbed once by these
cats, would point out a cat to us, flying on ahead, and would not
jump away at the sharp bang of the gun. She seemed to understand
perfectly well that we were protecting her and aiming at the enemy
she feared so much.
We have read how wild beasts from the jungle prowl around the homes
of India to snatch the children and carry them off. How careful the
mothers must be, always watching for the cruel animals and dreading
their quick spring!
The mother birds in our yard are like those human mothers in India.
You have only to watch them when a cat comes prowling around to see
how very much like human mothers they are. They scream and dart about
in fright, and if you go near they will fly not from you, but toward
the cat. They are asking you for help.
Birds near your house soon learn to know the family if every one is
kind to them, when they have once learned that you are their friend.
They will allow you to call while they are eating their meals, or to
watch them while nest-building, although they may be almost within
reach of your hand. They will even wait around the door for you to
shake the tablecloth after dinner, or to throw out the contents of
the crumb-pan, hopping about at your feet without a thought of fear.
We never can learn all there is to know about birds. We can know only
a little about them if we study them all our lives.
There is a great professor in a California university who has been
trying all his life to get acquainted with fishes, and yet he says he
has much more to learn about them. Very little people, like birds and
fishes and insects, can interest very great men, and we often see the
greatest men the kindest to small creatures.
We speak of birds in this book as "people," because they seem very
near to us. They are beings who think and plan and love, and who know
what it is to be sorry or glad, just like ourselves.
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