Citizen Bird: Scenes from Bird-Life in Plain English for BeginnersWright, Mabel Osgood
General
Citizen Bird: Scenes from Bird-Life in Plain English for Beginners
Wright, Mabel Osgood
Birds -- Juvenile literature
"Oh! like crazy things with wings! First one ran around a little and
whistled; then one jumped right off into the air, making a whirring with
his wings until he was way up out of sight, and then after a little
while he came pitching down zig-zag, like a kite that has lost its tail,
whistling something like the way a Swallow twitters, and making a queer
twanging noise. The other one stayed on the ground and jigged about all
the time. I would have liked to watch longer, but we had to find the
colt, you know."
"Now write your tables," said the Doctor, "for it is nearly
dinner-time."
Bob White.
Length ten inches.
Upper parts mixed reddish-brown, buff, gray, and black, with a white
line over the eye and a row of buff streaks on the inside wing-feathers.
Under parts white, black, and chestnut, the breast quite black and the
throat pure white in the male, but buff in the female, and other
markings much mixed up.
A Citizen of the greater part of temperate North America, and a very
valuable one, the prince of the game birds of its family. The bill is
stout for crushing seeds, the head has a slight crest, and the feet have
no feathers on the scaly part that goes from the drumstick down to the
roots of the toes.
The Ruffed Grouse
Length about seventeen inches.
Upper parts mottled with reddish-brown, black, gray, buff, and whitish,
in different blended patterns; on each side of the neck a tuft of long
glossy greenish-black feathers in the male, much shorter and not so dark
in the female; the tail in both sexes gray or brownish with black bars
or mottling, especially one broad bar near the end, and gray tip of the
feathers.
Lower parts light buff or whitish with many dark-brown or blackish bars,
best marked on the sides.
A Citizen of eastern North America, and a valuable game bird. It lives
on the ground and looks like a small Hen, but has a longer and handsomer
tail that spreads round like a fan. The bill is stout and the head
crested, like the Bob White's; but the feet have little feathers part
way down from the drumstick to the toes.
The Ruffed Grouse, like the Bob White, belongs to the Birds that
Scratch.
The American Woodcock
Length ten to twelve inches--female larger than male.
Upper parts variegated with brown, tawny, and black.
Under parts plain warm brown.
A Summer Citizen of eastern North America, wintering in southern parts
of its range, and a famous game bird. A ground bird of marshy woods and
near-by fields, though he belongs to the same family as the Snipe, and
is therefore classed among the Birds that Wade. He has a plump body,
with short, legs, neck, tail, and wings, a big head with the eyes set in
its back upper corners, a very long bill which is soft, sensitive, and
can be bent a little; and the three outside feathers in each wing are
very much narrower than the rest.
The dinner bell rang as the children wrote the last words.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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