Various

“ As though we do not consider that very fortunate!—for a cage is a prison, no matter if the bars are gilded. For my part I prefer to be free even if I do have to hustle for a living and, between you and me, I think that a bird that can screech and doesn't screech when shut up in a little cage doesn't deserve to live. ”

“ Though my regular bill-of-fare was bird-seed, yet she varied it as she did her own. Cracker, lettuce, apples, grapes, cherries, sugar, and always in the summer, pepper-grass. If you little folks have a canary never fail, I beseech you, to give them of the latter all they want to eat. It costs nothing and may be gathered in any vacant lot fresh every day.
What pleasure so kind a mistress could find in keeping me in a little gilt cage, I could not see, for there were screens in the window, and even if there had not been I don't believe I should have cared to fly away. ”

“ As to birds, the duck lays the mundane egg. "Then the water-mother finds a place upon her own knees for the duck to rest, where it lays an egg which rolls into the sea. There it breaks and is transformed into the earth." ”

“ When the prairie-dog folk found out that he was gone they were very sorry. They felt sure he had been eaten by some bird of prey or by a sly coyote.
"He was so wise and so handsome and so brave," said his mother; "there was no young fellow in the village who could be named in the same day with Wish-ton-wish."
Most everybody praised him now that he was dead, or now that they thought he was. I wonder if it isn't rather a poor plan to wait until people are dead or far away before we say the kind things that might have made them happy when they were near? ”

“ It is well known that beyond the realm of romance and poetry the buttercup is a plant abhorred by the cow that gives the milk that makes the butter. The lovely yellow color of the buttercup no doubt suggested the name. Apiarists know that certain kinds of flowers make certain grades of honey. They know also that while the bee makes its honey from the flower, it will also make honey from sugar and molasses. The drainings of molasses casks are given the bee for winter food, and it is one of the unsolved mysteries how the bee makes its honey. The nectar in the flower is not honey. ”

“ You may be able to make the average man believe that Washington was not always as truthful in his youth as Weems in the cherry-tree story tried to make him; that Captain John Smith drew somewhat on his imagination when some sixteen years after the expedition into the woods he told the story of his rescue by Pocahontas; that perhaps, after all, we did not whip the entire British nation twice in open warfare—but it will be hard to make any native-born American admit that the Mississippi river is not the longest in the world. ”

“ Winter often causes sad havoc among the numerous young brood born in summer. Yet they are very plentiful, at least in favorable years, the great fecundity of the female making up for the losses. Their chief protection against enemies is the difficulty in finding them and the amazing nimbleness they display as they dart between and under hedges like wrens.
The beauty and gracefulness of the ground-squirrels render them interesting pets, but as they never become quite tame, are timid and addicted to biting, and gnaw everything in the cage they are not very desirable to keep. ”

“ He has a fashion of standing by the seed cup and daring me to come and pick up a seed; the same with the drinking-water and the bathing-dish. Then again he is very gracious, and calls me pet names, and sings at the top of his voice every love song he knows. Sometimes I try to imitate him, when he flies into a rage and sharply bids me "shut up." I am too meek to return the compliment, even when I have grown weary of his music, but my mistress shakes her finger at him and calls him a "naughty, naughty bird."
She can't tame Jim, all she may do. ”

“ Every housewife knows that good tea is expensive. Since the different teas are all from the same species of plant why should there be such a difference in price? The expensive teas consist of the very young leaves and terminal branches and are carefully dried and prepared under special supervision. The young leaves and branches have a more delicate flavor. To determine whether a sample of tea consists of young leaves or not soak it in water, carefully roll out the leaves, and measure them. If the majority of leaves measure an inch or more in length it is a poor quality. ”

“ As our own conventional conception of music does not at all correspond with the wild bird's song, we are apt to consider the latter as foreign to art. If, however, we choose to consider the bird's conception of music a lawless one, we must show that he ignores all fundamental principles. ”

“ WOULDN'T the little readers of Birds and All Nature enjoy a talk with a mother-bird? The father-bird, it seems to me, has done all the talking hitherto. Because he is handsome and can sing is no reason why Jim, my mate, should write up the history of his family. It would have been a sorry attempt had he tried, I promise you, for though he is a Hartz Mountain Canary—pure yellow and white like the lower bird in the picture—he is not at all clever. My mistress says I have more sense in one of my little toes than Jim has in his whole body. ”

“ But towhee is not limited to this variety of vocalization. Besides the abbreviation of his che-wink alarm note to swink, or even wink, and a chuck, chuck, when the nest is threatened, he sometimes sings a rarely beautiful ditty which is totally unlike any of his other performances. I have heard it only shortly after his arrival from the south, before his mate had joined him, and have tried in vain to describe it. The bird moves slowly and sedately about among the fallen leaves in a soliloquy over the happenings of the long journey just ended, with apparently no thought of the absent mate. ”

“ Jim sometimes taunts me because I wear such sober colors—black and brown with green and yellow mixed—like the upper bird in the picture—but I retort that I am a Hartz Mountain bird, also, and have just as good German blood in my veins as he has. Neither of us ever saw the Hartz Mountains, of course, for we were born in Chicago, but our great grandmothers did, I am sure.
A good husband? No, I can't say that Jim is. He is too quarrelsome. My mistress says he is a bully, whatever that may mean. ”

“ The young remain there until driven away by the storms of winter. The adults leave the islands in summer only to feed, going to a distance of one hundred to two hundred miles for that purpose. The winter is spent by the entire herd in the open sea, their migrations extending from one thousand to twenty-five hundred miles to the southward of their breeding-resorts.
For many years, both under Russian and American control, the herds have, as I have said, received absolute protection on land, the killing for skins being restricted to the bands of superfluous males. ”

“ It is of no use to run away from trouble, hoping to find a place where there isn't any. Trouble comes everywhere; and so does happiness."
"Yes, mother; I believe it," said Wish-ton-wish, and he looked with soft eyes over toward the burrow of the plumpest Miss Talky. ”

“ The cries of a wounded companion will always recall the whole flock to his aid, thus enabling the hunter to kill every bird in the flock. It is this characteristic, no doubt, which has very largely caused the rapid disappearance of the birds before advancing civilization.
The nesting-habits of the paroquet are in some doubt, but the evidence seems to indicate that the birds may rear their brood either in a cavity in a tree or build a slight nest after the fashion of the mourning-dove. Such nests seem to be largely confined to the cypress swamps of Florida. ”

“ Perhaps we do not definitely know more of the mystery of the flower's secreting the nectar, and of the bee's making the honey, than was known in ancient times. There are differences of opinion on the subject. Darwin considers the honey secreted by the nectary to be the natural food with which the stamens and pistils are nourished. Others assert that the only use of honey with which flowers are supplied is to tempt insects, which, in procuring it, scatter the dust of the anthers and fertilize the flowers, and even carry the pollen from barren to fertile flowers. ”

“ In this country there are only three importers of canaries. Each of these firms employs "bird-pickers" who travel over the mountains in Germany and gather together a supply of birds which are selected from the stocks of the small breeders.
There are several varieties of English canaries. The Norwich is a general favorite. It takes its name from the city of Norwich, where for generations it has been bred and cultivated. It has a brilliant, deep, reddish-yellow plumage. It is regarded as the most beautiful of all the canaries. Its color is frequently so dark that it is called the red canary. ”

“ Of the many varieties of canaries the most popular in the United States is the German. It is smaller than the English canary and is a much finer singer, being bred and trained for song and not for size. They are called Hartz Mountain canaries, and experts consider them the most satisfactory bird for the people. They are bred by the peasants in ordinary living-rooms high up among the Hartz Mountains of Germany. These birds are even more hardy than the American-bred canaries. ”

“ It is a great pity, but we paroquets are fast being exterminated. In some regions, where less than twenty-five years ago we were very plentiful, not a paroquet is now to be seen. We were once quite common in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and other parts of the United States. We are now to be found, in diminished numbers, in remote localities only of the lower Mississippi Valley and the Gulf States and in some regions of Florida. To escape from our enemy, the plume-hunter, we make our homes in practically uninhabitable regions. ”

“ At times the bed of this river has actually stood above the level of the surrounding country, its walls having risen with the rise of the bed due to the deposit of mud till it seemed as if the great river had risen to take a look over the surrounding plain to see where it could wreak the direst vengeance on those who prevented it from running unvexed to the sea. ”

“ I then withdrew and approached again, repeating this several times before I stretched out my hand to take it, at which it flew to another bush. But the next time it allowed me to grasp it, and I had caught a wild bird open-handed without even the use of salt!"
One of the curious features of humming birds is that they are never found in Europe, being exclusively American, ranging in this country from the extreme north to the tropics, adding to the beauty of field and grove, being veritable living gems. Nothing can approach the humming bird in its gorgeousness of decoration. ”

“ Year by year the levees have crept up the sides of the great river, choking it into narrow walls. Year after year it has risen in its wrath and burst its bounds to destroy the cities and plantations which have been fattening in the mud of its alluvial flats. Every year the levees are put up higher, and as the works extend to the northward and more effectually close up the southern places of spreading out there is an average increase in the stage of high water and in velocity of the current. ”

“ Some appear to be decked in a coat of mail, others blazing in the sunlight with head-dresses and breast-plates that are dazzling to behold and defy description. The smallest of birds, they are one of the most beautiful of the many ornaments of our fields and gardens. ”

“ Before they are mated the hen birds are kept in separate cages in the music room, carefully fed and made to listen to the music of the singers and the machine used in training their voices. In this way the hen is enabled to transmit the best musical quality to her offspring. The music-room is a large one, with a south exposure, and is kept with the same scrupulous neatness as the breeding-room. In the corner of this room is the bird organ, and with it the little birds are given their vocal training. ”

“ About 1884 different persons, known as pelagic sealers—chiefly citizens of Canada, but some of them from the United States—began to attack the herd in Bering Sea. Here no selective killing was possible. The females were always in the numerical majority, as the males had become less numerous on account of land-killing and as they left the islands less frequently in the summer. Each female above two years, when taken in the sea, died with her unborn young. Most of the adult females so taken after July 1 had left their young on the islands, and these orphan pups invariably starved to death. ”

“ But it was healthy and vigorous, and so pugnacious that on our return, after the day's absence, it would fly at us, or try to, poor thing, and peck our outstretched fingers, even while taking offered hemp seed greedily. The bird watched and waited for our coming and we became so much attached to it that its death was a real loss.
The little birds can fill our hearts
As full as larger creatures' arts.
The nest of the canary is a pretty, neatly formed structure of any soft material it can find. ”

“ It must be remembered that even fair medium qualities are mixed; that is, they consist of mature and immature leaves. The best and most expensive teas are often sold at one hundred dollars per pound. They are never exported, but consumed by high Chinese officials. Imperial tea is prepared under the direct supervision of royal government officials.
Tea owes its stimulating properties to an active constituent known as thein, which is in all respects similar to caffein, the active constituent of coffee. The flavor which is developed by the drying process is due to several constituents. ”

“ The bee makes the honey from what is abstracted from the flower, and also preserves life and makes honey from sweets that are given it for food. Buckwheat is an example of dark, rich honey and white clover and raspberry blooms of clear, translucent honey. Also the fact is, that abstracting the nectar in no wise impairs the beauty nor the fruitfulness of the flower. ”

“ The bird is a transcendentalist, ever attempting what he cannot satisfactorily accomplish, but failing, only to delight us with the strange sweetness of the imperfect performance. The highest form of bird-music is unquestionably revealed in the songs of the thrushes. ”

“ AMERICANS like to boast of the things of this country that are larger, longer, more valuable, or more wonderful than anything of the kind in the world. They have recited in school such a number of statements about the Mississippi river that the great stream has become one of the essential points of our nation's honor. ”