Page:How to Have Bird Neighbors.pdf/116

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then back to a picket. As I walked slowly along, he flew from picket to picket ahead of me, until I came to where the houses on the street begin again. Then he flew back. I think that pewee and phœbe must be some relation, they look so nearly alike. And both sing their own names.

Another bird who sings his name is Bob White, the quail. "Bob White!" came ringing across the meadow every little while. The boy could whistle it exactly the same as the bird, and they answered each other back and forth. Bob White was on a fence post,—a large brown bird with a stubby tail.

On Thanksgiving Day I was up at the farm again, and I saw a shelter which the boy had made for the winter comfort of Bob White, and other birds who wished to share it. It was tent-like, made out of cornstalks, the inside filled with pea vines, bean vines, morning-glory vines, and several sheaves of oats. Kitty was watching beside the shelter,—for mice, the boy explained!

The new food house was being visited by bluejays, who nibbled at the suet. A smaller feedery on a tree had corn in a tray and suet in a wire pocket. This feedery was much liked by downies, and small gray birds with white on lower front and tail—juncos. Juncos came in flocks of a dozen or more, and twittered, "Tut, tut, tut," to each other and to us, in sociable fashion. They preferred to pick up the scatterings of chickfeed on the ground, rather than perch