Identifier: firstbookofbirds00mill (find matches)
Title: The first book of birds;
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Miller, Harriet Mann, 1831-1918
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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ile his mate isgone, and a goldfinch coaxes his mate to go offwith him for a lunch, leaving nest and eggs totake care of themselves. Another thing the father birds do is to sing.This is the time when we hear so much birdsong. The singers have little to do but to wait,and so they please themselves, and their mates,and us too, by singing a great deal. When the little birds begin to be cramped,and find their cradle too tight, they peck at theshell with a sort of tooth that grows on the endof the beak, and is called the egg tooth.*This soon breaks the shell, and they come out.Then the mother or father carefully picks upthe pieces of shell, carries them off, and throwsthem away, leaving only the little ones in thenest. Perhaps you have found these brokenshells on the ground sometimes, and could notguess how they came there. When the bird-lings break out of their prison they do not alllook the same. Ducks and sfeese and chickensand quails, and other birds who live on the America7i Goldfinch
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THE BABY BIRD 15 ground, as well as hawks and owls, are dressedin pretty suits of down. They have their eyesopen, and the ground birds are ready to runabout at once. A man who studied birds, once saw a youngduck get its first suit of down. He picked upthe egg just as the little bird inside was tryingto get out. In a few minutes the shell fellapart, and out stepped the duckling on his hand.It seemed to be covered with coarse black hairs,which in a moment began to burst open, one byone, and out of each came a soft fluff of down.So in a few minutes, while the man stood thereand held him, the little duck was all coveredwith his pretty dress. But most birds hatched in nests in trees andbushes, like robins and bluebirds, are very dif-ferent. When they come out of their shellsthey are naked, have their eyes shut, and lookas if they were nearly all month. A younghummingbird looks about as big as a honeybee, and a robin baby not much bigger than theeggshell he came out of. * They lie flat down

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