Tag Birds Every Child Should Know

ORCHARD ORIOLE. Fortunately many other birds besides this oriole prefer to live in orchards; otherwise think how many worm-eaten apples there would be!

It is not until he calls out his name, Chebec! Chebec! in clear and business-like tones from some tree-top that you could identify this fluffy flycatcher, scarcely more than five inches long, whose dusky coat and light vest offer no helpful markings.

When you have been wandering through the summer woods did you ever, like Trowbridge, sit down

PHOEBE BIRD (Dusky Flycatcher). The first of its family to come North, as well as the last to leave us for the winter, the phoebe appears toward the end of March to snap up the first insects warmed into life by the spring sunshine.

KINGBIRD (Bee Martin). In spite of his scientific name, which has branded him the tyrant of tyrants, the kingbird is by no means a bully.

Whiskey Jack Bird (CANADA JAY) . Anyone who has camped in the northern United States and over the Canadian border knows that the crow and blue jay have a rogue for a cousin in this sleek, bold thief, the Canada jay.

BLUE JAY BIRD. This vivacious, dashing fellow, harsh-voiced and noisy, cannot be overlooked; for when a brightly coloured bird, about a foot long, roves about your neighbourhood with a troop of screaming relatives, everybody knows it.

AMERICAN CROW. Two close relatives there are which, like the poor, are always with us—the crow and the blue jay. Both are mischievous rascals, extraordinarily clever, with the most highly developed brains that any of our birds possess.

PURPLE GRACKLE and BRONZED GRACKLE. You probably know either one of our two crow blackbirds, similar in size and habits, one with purplish,

BALTIMORE ORIOLE (Golden Oriole). A flash of flame among the tender young spring foliage; a rich, high, whistled song from the blossoming cherry trees, and every child knows that the sociable Baltimore oriole has just returned from Central America.

A queer, shadowy bird, that sleeps all day in the dense wood and flies about through open country after dark as softly as an owl, would be difficult for any child to know were it not for the weird, snappy triplets of notes that tell his name. Every one knows him far better by sound than by sight.

MEADOWLARK BIRD. Every farmer's boy knows his father's friend, the meadowlark, the brownish, mottled bird, larger than a robin, with a lovely yellow breast and black crescent on it, that keeps well hidden in the grass of the meadows or grain fields.

This cousin of the red-wing, whom it resembles in size, flight and notes, is a common migrant in the United States. Nesting is done farther north.

When you are looking for the first pussy willows in the frozen marshes, or listening to the peeping of young frogs some day in early spring,

Such a rollicking, jolly singer is the bobolink! On a May morning, when buttercups spangle the fresh grasses in the meadows, he rises from their midst into the air with the merriest frolic of a song you ever heard.

It was on a cold January day in Central Park, New York, that I first met a cardinal and was warmed by the sight.

Among birds, as among humans, it is the father who lends his name to the family, however difficult it may be to know the mother and children by it.

From their hunting-ground in the blackberry tangle and bushes that border a neighbouring wood, a family of chewinks sally forth boldly to my piazza floor to pick up seed from the canary's cage,