Birds in Winter

The
“LOOK ABOUT YOU”
Nature Study Books

BY
THOMAS W. HOARE
TEACHER OF NATURE STUDY
to the Falkirk School Board and Stirlingshire County Council

BOOK III.

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
16 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
AND EDINBURGH

Printed by M‘Farlane & Erskine, Edinburgh.

PREFACE.

This little book should be used as a simple guide to the practical study of Nature rather than as a mere reader.

Every lesson herein set down has, during the author’s many years’ experience in teaching Nature Study, been taught by observation and practice again and again; and each time with satisfactory result. The materials required for most of the lessons—whether they be obtained from the naturalist-dealer or from the nearest hedge, ditch, or pond—are within everybody’s reach.

There is nothing that appeals to the heart of the ordinary child like living things, be they animal or vegetable, and there is no branch of education at the present day that bears, in the young mind, such excellent fruit as the study of the simple, living things around us.

Your child is nothing if not curious. He wants to understand everything that lives and moves and has its being in his bright little world.

Nature Study involves so many ingenious little deductions, that the reasoning powers are almost constantly employed, and intelligence grows proportionately. The child’s powers of observation are stimulated, and his memory is cultivated in the way most pleasing to his inquiring nature. By dissecting seeds, bulbs, buds, and flowers, his hand is trained, and methods expeditious and exact are inculcated. By drawing his specimens, no matter how roughly or rapidly, his eye is trained more thoroughly than any amount of enforced copying of stiff, uninteresting models of prisms, cones, etc., ever could train it.

The love of flowers and animals is one of the most commendable traits in the disposition of the wondering child, and ought to be encouraged above all others.

It is the author’s fondest and most sanguine hope that the working out of the exercises, of which this booklet is mainly composed, may prove much more of a joy than a task, and that the practical knowledge gained thereby may tempt his little readers to study further the great book of Nature, whose broad pages are ever open to us, and whose silent answers to our manifold questions are never very difficult to read.

T. W. H.

CONTENTS

LESSON PAGE

I. Birds in Winter 7

II. Seed-Eaters and Insect-Eaters 12

III. Buds 16

IV. A Baby Plant 25

V. How a Plant Grows 30

VI. More about Seeds 36

VII. The Horse Pond in Spring 44

VIII. Uncle George’s Tank 49

IX. Tadpoles 54

X. Frogs, Toads, and Newts 61

XI. Underground Stems 66

XII. Caterpillars 76

XIII. The White Butterfly 82

XIV. The Toiling Caddis 88

  Appendix 95

“LOOK ABOUT YOU.”
BOOK III.

I.—BIRDS IN WINTER.

“When we look out there, it makes us feel thankful that we have a nice cosy room to play in and a warm fire to sit beside.”

It was Uncle George who spoke. His two nephews, Frank and Tom, stood at the window watching the birds feeding outside, while Dolly, their little sister, was busy with her picture-blocks on the carpet.

“Yes, it is better to be inside in winter,” said Frank, the elder boy. “These poor little birds must have a hard time out in the cold all night.”

“I should not mind being a bird during the rest of the year, though,” said little Tom. “It must be so jolly to be able to fly wherever you like.”

Uncle George smiled, and said, “Birds are very happy little creatures, Tom, but they have many enemies. Their lives are in constant danger. They must always be on the look-out for cats, hawks, guns, and cruel boys. Those birds that stay with us all the year round have often a hard fight for life in winter-time. In fact, many of them starve to death.

“Most of our birds fly to warmer countries in autumn, and come back to us in spring. These miss the frost and snow, but a great number of them get drowned while crossing the sea. I think, as a little boy, you are much better off.

“Let me see; have you put out any food for the birds this morning?”

“Yes, Uncle George, we have done exactly as you told us,” said Frank. “Mother made a little net, which we filled with suet and scraps of