Jenny Wren and her husband like a little perch to rest upon before entering their home. In order to keep the English sparrow from being inquisitive and troublesome, make the entrance only one inch across so that Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow cannot enter.
“Sparrows are not a bit nice neighbors,” fusses gentle Jenny Wren. “They pick a quarrel over nothing, then peck our family to pieces if they can.”
Do not charge Mr. and Mrs. Martin for lodgings. Instead, be thankful that they bring their friends and relatives with them, for martins come in companies and love to linger where invited. They destroy millions of insects.
These heavenly bluebirds, with pinkish plumage on their breasts, add great beauty to our home gardens; and fortunate is the owner of the bird house which they select “rent free.” They are terribly afraid of English sparrows, or more of them would live in the houses around about the home garden. Bluebirds eat up whole families of garden pests at a meal.
Do you know that if you place a basin upside down on the post before putting the house on, cats cannot climb over it?
Will you keep an account of the birds you see every day?
Will you bring some pictures of birds to put on a chart?
If you build a bird house, will you bring it for the class to see?
The birds of one of our large cities are being provided with homes by the pupils of the city’s public schools. These homes are bird houses, made by the children in the manual training classes.
The president of the city’s Humane Society offers a prize every spring to the child who first has a bird tenant in the houses newly set out. The prize is a book about birds and their habits.
You can imagine how eagerly the boys and girls watch the houses to be sure of noting the exact time when a bird family moves in.
Many years ago there lived in the city of Rome a rich man who owned a great number of slaves.
One slave, named Androclus, grew very weary of the hard work he was forced to do, and upon a dark night ran away from his home.
At first he did not know where to go, but ran blindly through the streets until at length, when almost breathless, he found himself outside of the city.
There he could travel more slowly; but he must, nevertheless, go steadily on or he would be caught and fed to the lions. For this was the law; a runaway slave was cast into the arena into which hungry lions were driven.