insects or of weed
seeds. While some birds swallow the seeds whole and pass them again
unharmed, thus spreading the plant, others crack the seed coat and eat
the contents, which of course destroys the seed. Even where the birds
are the means of sowing seeds they do more good than harm; for the seeds
thus sown are not often harmful, and those same birds destroy a vast
number of noxious insects. Even owls and hawks, by destroying mice in
the farmer's fields, do him a service that much more than compensates
for the loss of an occasional chicken.

While the birds are of inestimable value to the farmer and to any one
who has a garden, their influence on our lives in another direction is
also very great, as difficult to estimate perhaps, as that of flowers.
Who can doubt that these little brothers of the air are one of the most
civilizing and elevating factors in man's daily life? Their song, their
flight, their thousand and one charming or entertaining habits, their
strong expression of personality, their poetical and mysterious comings
and goings, appeal powerfully to the higher imagination.

The migration of birds is alone enough to fill the mind with enchanting
dreams. To know that every night in late summer and in autumn there is a
stream of birds moving high in the air along the line of the sea-coast
and of the great valleys is enough to awaken fancy. This winged
procession moving along its aerial highway is made of the small and
timid birds that dare not fly by day for fear of hawks and other
enemies; they may be as high as three miles above the surface of the
earth, their height being estimated by watching them through the
telescope as they cross the surface of the moon. Imagine looking through
the telescope at the face of the full moon some night and seeing an
endless procession of little birds speeding across its shining face!

The amazing power of birds to see and hear, and, most interesting of
all, their nest-building habits are calculated to arouse the wonder and
admiration of every observer. What child would not watch with intense
interest the bringing of the straws or other materials, and the deft
weaving of them into the home which is presently to receive the precious
eggs? Even the city sparrow may here be a boon to the mother.
Sufficiently encouraged, it will accommodatingly build almost anywhere.

The child who knows the story of fish life and frog life will need
little telling here, and that is one argu