Oxpeckers 127 Wings in Feeding 130 Instrumental Music of Birds 133 Conditioning in Birds 136 Poisonous Birds 140 Kingfishers on the Telephone 143 On Identifying Sea Serpents 147 Conservation over the Telephone 151 Birds Washing Food 154 How Animal Voices Sound to Foreign Ears 157 Sight Identification 160 Green Hunting Jays Turn Blue 164 How Birds Use Cows as Hunting Dogs 167 Early Bird Listing 171 Battle of the Sexes and Its Evolutionary Significance 173 Water in the Desert 177 Bird Graveyards 180 Animal Gardens 183 Dropping Things 186 Learning by Birds 189 Can Birds Count? 192 Courtship Feeding 195 They Turned the Tables 198 Survival of the Unfit 201 Dust and Snow Bathing 204 Decoration in the Home 207 Curiosity in Birds 210 References 213 Index 221 INTRODUCTION In looking back over the preparation of these sketches I feel as though each evening I'd gathered up the bits and pieces left over from the day's work and fashioned them into designs for my own amusement and the edification of my family. Truly it's as though I'd used stray feathers, fallen from the bird skins I'd handled, and fitted them together into something of wider interest than the original.