HOW BABY BIRDS ARE FED.
Some of the baby birds are nurslings, like the lambs and colts. They
are dependent upon what the parent birds first eat and digest. Others
eat just what the old birds do from the start. Only you will notice
that the mother bird pounds and bruises the food she gives to her
young, tapping it on the edge of the nest or on a twig or the ground
until it is soft enough for the birds to swallow without danger of
scratching their tender throats.
Linnets, pigeons, humming-birds, and some of the finches, are
nurslings. The food is prepared for them by the parent birds, and the
young are fed by the old bird's bill. We imagine that the bill of
the parent bird is the nursing-bottle. The old birds first eat food
themselves, and then work it over in their crops into a sort of paste
or milky fluid. Then, when the meal is all ready, they alight on
the edge of the nest and feed the babies. We have seen humming-bird
mothers feed the babies while poised on their wings above the nest.
Perhaps there are four or five finches all clamoring for breakfast,
crying, and stretching their little necks up as high as possible. The
old bird on the edge of the nest looks at the open mouths of all her
babies, and begins at the one she thinks is the hungriest. She puts
the nursing-bottle, which is her bill, far down the throat of the
nursling, clinging fast to the nest or twig with her toes, and moving
her bill up and down, her own throat throbbing all the while.
We once saw a humming-bird feed one of her young ones and then fly
away. During her absence the little birds changed places in the
nest, turning completely around. When the mother came back to finish
giving them their breakfast, she made no mistake, but fed the hungry
one, though both had their bills wide open.
When the mother has fed one child as much as she thinks is its share,
she turns to the next open mouth. In this way she nurses the whole
cradleful, who seem never to be satisfied.
[Illustration: Humming-Bird feeding her Young.]
We have seen no "runts" or dwarf birds in a family, as are sometimes
seen in a nest of pigs or puppies. The parent birds seem to
understand, and to see that each baby has its proper share and not a
crumb more. They do not love one better than another.
Some birds keep on nursing their young long after we think the lazy
children are large enough to be looking out for themselves. It would
be no better than they deserve if they had to go hungry sometimes.
We think they often must get very hungry before they have learned to
work for their board. This is all right, for if the parents kept on
supporting them, what useless creatures they would be!
We shall tell you after a while about our bird's restaurant. We
have seen the young birds follow their mother to the table at
this restaurant and stand coaxing for the crumbs. At first the
mocking-bird mother picks up the food and puts it in the young bird's
mouth, and then she flies away. She has given it only a little,
just to show the little bird where the food is and how to pick it
up himself. There he will stand, looking at the cookie crumbs and
teasing as loud as he can, but the mother will not come back. She
sits in a tree near by watching to see how her bird child learns his
first lesson at helping himself.
After a while, the young bird gets very hungry and begins pecking
for the crumbs. At first he makes very awkward attempts at grabbing
a crumb, but he succeeds at last and swallows the rest of his
breakfast. We laugh, sitting in the shade watching him, and we think
his mother is laughing too, in the tree above.
Those birds that do not nurse their young with liquid food are
supposed to give them water as well as food, by bringing it to them
in their beaks, though we have not seen them do so. Probably the
babies are fed on soft worms and fruits until they have cut their
first teeth.
How can the little things eat hard seeds and bones before they have
any teeth? Does it make you smile and wonder when we speak of baby
birds cutting their teeth? Don't you suppose birds have teeth? Of
course they have.
Every bird has a set of false teeth working out of sight. Birds never
have the toothache, and they do not have to be brave and hold still
while somebody pulls their teeth out. They can have a new set of
teeth as often as they need them, without paying a good price to the
dentist.
Look along the path and you will see these teeth, lying as thick as
hail in some places. Little sharp stones, coarse gravel, and fine
sand,--these are the bird's teeth. When a bird picks them up, he
swallows them, and they go, without any trouble, right where they
belong, down to a kind of pouch or pocket called the gizzard. This
pocket is lined with very tough muscles. These muscles or rings look
something like a fluting-iron or washboard, and as they move they set
the teeth or little stones to rolling against the food in such a way
that it is soon ground into bits, or rather into paste.
It takes a baby bird a long time to learn to pick up anything with
its bill. It will peck and peck at the food without being able to
touch it, as we have seen many birds do when brought up in a cage,
and as the little mocking-birds do at the garden table.
Once we had some pet orioles, and before we noticed what he was
doing, one of them made his bill look like a hawk's bill, all curved
or crooked. He had pecked so hard at the food on the board floor of
his cage that the hard taps had bent his soft bill out of shape, and
it remained so after the bird had grown up. We have seen a blue jay
and a thrush and a towhee, each with his beak out of shape, twisted
to one side or broken. This must have been done when they were
little. Birds, like other people, must have the right start if they
are to be beautiful when they are older.
[Illustration: Blue Jay.]
Though young birds can see the food before them, they have to try
a long while before they know exactly how to take hold of it. They
make us think of real babies trying to pick up some toy with their
fat little hands. A bird's bill at first is very soft, like a baby's
bones. If you feel of it, you will see that to the touch it is like a
piece of rubber.
The difficulty is really more with the bird's eyes than with his
bill, for it seems that, although he sees the food which he wants to
eat, he cannot measure the distance correctly until he has learned
how to see straight and aim right.
"Let me look in your mouth, little bird;
How many white teeth have you?
No teeth? then how do you chew your food?
Be honest and tell me true."
"My teeth are all out of sight, little boy,
They are hard and white and firm;--
Out of sight, but they grind the seeds like a mill,
And the bug, and the nice fat worm."
[Illustration]