“Our hours,” said a nature student, “are nothing to the birds.
Why, some birds work in the summer nineteen hours a day.
Indefatigably they clear the crops of insects.
“The thrush gets up at 2:30 every summer morning. He rolls up
his sleeves, and falls to work at once, and he never stops until
9:30 at night. A clean nineteen hours. During that time he feeds
his voracious young two hundred and six times.
“The blackbird starts work at the same time as the thrush, but
he ‘lays off’ earlier. His whistle blows at 7:30, and during his
seventeen-hour day he sets about one hundred meals before his
kiddies.
“The titmouse is up and about at three in the morning and his
stopping time is nine at night. A fast worker, the titmouse is
said to feed his young four hundred and seventeen meals--meals
of caterpillar mainly--in the long, hard, hot day.”--_Green’s
Fruit Grower._
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