Bird lore - Project Puffin

382
THE
Bird - Lore
A Christmas Tree for the Birds
Center Bird Club of the Junior Audubon Class of Pepperell, Mass.,
is one of four bird clubs organized in the spring of 191 5 for the children,
in different parts of the town. It consists of thirty members, and meets
once a month. The Audubon leaflets have been given out each month and
the children have done good work in coloring them, and have been interested
in learning about each bird described. Bird walks have been taken in summer,
nesting-, food- and shelter-boxes put up, and all the children pledged to pro-
tect the birds in every possible way.
During the Christmas holidays the children trimmed a tree for the birds
on the lawn at Highledge (the home of one of the teachers). The tree looked
very gay when finished, garlanded with strings of popcorn and cranberries
and hung with red apples, baskets of cracked nuts and boxes of seed, topped
off with a cheery little Santa Claus bearing a tiny flag that floated merrily in
the wind.
The feathered guests appeared much interested in all the proceedings,
attracted by food-boxes filled with seed and cracked corn, a hanging lunch-
counter stocked with nuts and sunflower seeds for the special delectation of
the Chickadees and Nuthatches, and suet and marrow-bones fastened on
neighboring trees for the Blue Jays. It was a very jolly afternoon for both birds
and children, although owing to illness and a rehearsal for a Christmas enter-
tainment on that day, fewer Club members were able to be present than
anticipated.
—
Annetta S. Merrill.
[A charming intimacy is created between children and birds when the latter are
attracted to the former by means of such a symbol as the Christmas tree—not that the
birds have any inkling of its significance, but because, indirectly, they become a part
of the children's most cherished holiday. Everyone ought to be better and happier for
celebrating Christmas, and birds can add much to the day's joy.
It would be a delightful innovation if local Audubon Societies set about helping the
different schools in their vicinities arrange Christmas trees for the birds, as an introduc-
tion to feeding birds during the winter. A helping hand or bit of encouragement quietly
given here and there accomplishes more, often, than a spasmodic entertainment or lec-
ture. Audubon Societies have not done their whole duty when they have provided a
few public lectures or distributed some hundreds of leaflets. Coming into personal
contact with teachers and pupils is what counts most.—A. H. W.]
HOUSE-WARMING
Excerpt from Chapter XIII, 'Walden' by Thoreau.
"At length the winter set in in good earnest . . . and the wind began to howl
around the house as if it had not had permission to do so till then. Night after night
the geese came lumbering in in the dark with a clangor and a whistling of wings, even
after the ground was covered with snow, some to alight in Walden, and some flying
low over the woods toward Fair-Haven, bound for Mexico. Several times, when return-