ts begin or renew their growth.
Spring is also the season when the eggs of many insects hatch out and
when others come from the cocoons in which they have slept all winter.

"Then the farmer begins his annual war upon them, and day after day he
fights the Battle of the Bugs. But if he stops to think, and remembers
that Heart of Nature has a use for everything, he will win this battle
against the creeping, crawling, squirming regiments more easily. For
above him in the trees of his forest, in the hedgerows and bushes of his
pasture and garden, on the rafters of his barn, even in the chimney of
his house, live the birds, willing and eager to help him. And all the
wages they ask is permission to work for a living and protection from
those of his fellowmen who covet the Oriole and Cardinal for their gay
feathers and the Robin and Meadowlark for pot-pie."

"Singing-bird pie is wicked. I would like to pound them all," said Dodo,
striking her fists together, as Nat did sometimes, not making it clear
whether it was pie or people she wanted to pound. "But uncle, it is
right to eat some birds--Ducks and Chickens and Geese and Turkeys."

"Yes, Dodo, they belong to another class of birds--a lower order that
seem made for food--not singing nor helping the farmers; but even these
should not be shot needlessly or in their nesting season. But the higher
order--the perching Song Birds--should never be shot, except the common
Sparrow of Europe that we call the English Sparrow. His habits are
wholly bad; he meddles with the nests of useful birds and is a nuisance
to his human as well as bird neighbors.

"To prevent confusion Heart of Nature has divided the habits and
appetites of Birdland, so that instead of a great many families all
building in one kind of tree, or eating the same sort of insects or
seeds, each has its own manners and customs. Thus they divide among
themselves the realms of the air, the water, the trees, and the ground.
Some birds, as the Swallows and Flycatchers, skim through the air to
catch winged insects. Others, like the Woodpeckers and Warblers, take
the scaly insects from the bark of trees. Others that walk on the
ground, like the Robin, the Thrush, Meadowlark, Crow, and Red-winged
Blackbird, eat ground things, such as the fat cutworms which mow with
sharp jaws the young plants of corn, cabbage, and onions."

"Please, Doctor Hunter," asked Rap, "I thought Crows and Blackbirds
were wicked birds that ate up grai