The Burgess Bird Book for ChildrenBurgess, Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo)
General
The Burgess Bird Book for Children
Burgess, Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo)
Birds -- Juvenile literature
In his interest in the affairs of others of his feathered friends, Peter
had quite forgotten the Warblers. Then one day when he was in the Green
Forest where the spruce-trees grow, he stopped to rest. This particular
part of the Green Forest was low and damp, and on many of the trees gray
moss grew, hanging down from the branches and making the trees look much
older than they really were. Peter was staring at a hanging branch of
this moss without thinking anything about it when suddenly a little
bird alighted on it and disappeared in it. At least, that is what Peter
thought. But it was all so unexpected that he couldn't be sure his eyes
hadn't fooled him.
Of course, right away he became very much interested in that bunch of
moss. He stared at it very hard. At first it looked no different from
a dozen other bunches of moss, but presently he noticed that it was
a little thicker than other bunches, as if somehow it had been woven
together. He hopped off to one side so he could see better. It looked
as if in one side of that bunch of moss was a little round hole. Peter
blinked and looked very hard indeed to make sure. A minute later there
was no doubt at all, for a little feathered head was poked out and a
second later a dainty mite of a bird flew out and alighted very close to
Peter. It was one of the smaller members of the Warbler family.
“Sprite!” cried Peter joyously. “I missed you when your cousins passed
through here, and I thought you had gone to the Far North with the rest
of them.”
“Well, I haven't, and what's more I'm not going to go on to the Far
North. I'm going to stay right here,” declared Sprite the Parula
Warbler, for that is who it was.
As Peter looked at Sprite he couldn't help thinking that there wasn't
a daintier member in the whole Warbler family. His coat was of a soft
bluish color with a yellowish patch in the very center of his back.
Across each wing were two bars of white. His throat was yellow. Just
beneath it was a little band of bluish-black. His breast was yellow and
his sides were grayish and brownish-chestnut.
“Sprite, you're just beautiful,” declared Peter in frank admiration.
“What was the reason I didn't see you up in the Old Orchard with your
cousins?”
“Because I wasn't there,” was Sprite's prompt reply as he flitted about,
quite unable to sit still a minute. “I wasn't there because I like the
Green Forest better, so I came straight here.”
“What were you doing just now in that bunch of moss?” demanded Peter, a
sudden suspicion of the truth hopping into his head.
“Just looking it over,” replied Sprite, trying to look innocent.
At that very instant Peter looked up just in time to see a tail
disappearing in the little round hole in the side of the bunch of moss.
He knew that that tail belonged to Mrs. Sprite, and just that glimpse
told him all he wanted to know.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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