Produced by Don Kostuch [Transcriber's notes] This is derived from a copy on the Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/birdsthateverych00doub Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book. Obvious spelling errors have been corrected but "inventive" and inconsistent spelling is left unchanged. Thanks to Kathy Danek for introducing me to this book. [End Transcriber's notes] {cover} BIRDS Every Child Should Know by Neltje Blanchan {i} BIRDS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW {ii} [Illustration] Red-Eyed Vireo. {iii} BIRDS THAT EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW BY NELTJE BLANCHAN Author of "Bird Neighbours," "Birds that Hunt and Are Hunted," "Nature's Garden," and "How to Attract the Birds." SIXTY-THREE PAGES OF PHOTOGRAPHS FROM LIFE NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS {iv} Copyright, 1907, by Doubleday, Page & Company _All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian._ {v} PREFACE If all his lessons were as joyful as learning to know the birds in the fields and woods, there would be no "...whining Schoole-boy with his Satchell And shining morning face creeping like Snaile Unwillingly to schoole." Long before his nine o'clock headache appears, lessons have begun. Nature herself is the teacher who rouses him from his bed with an outburst of song under the window and sets his sleepy brain to wondering whether it was a robin's clear, ringing call that startled him from his dreams, or the chipping sparrow's wiry tremulo, or the gushing little wren's tripping cadenza. Interest in the birds trains the ear quite unconsciously. A keen, intelligent listener is rare, even among grown-ups, but a child who is becoming acquainted with the birds about him hears every sound and puzzles out its meaning with a cleverness that amazes those with ears who hear not. He responds to the first alarm note from the nesting blue birds in the orchard and dashes out of the house to chase away a prowling cat. He knows from {vi} afar the distress caws of a company of crows and away he goes to be sure that their persecutor is a hawk. A faint tattoo in the woods sends him climbing up a tall straight tree with the confident expectation of finding a woodpecker's nest within the hole in its side. While training his ears, Nature is also training every muscle in his body, sending him on long tramps across the fields in pursuit of a new bird to be identified, making him run and jump fences and wade brooks and climb trees with the zest that produces an appetite like a saw-mill's and deep sleep at the close of a happy day.