Learning About Birds Through Stories

26. GEORGE STEPHENSON AND THE MOTHER BIRD
27. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL AND THE ROBINS
28. REVIVING THE FAMISHED HUMMING-BIRD
29. BE KIND
30. AUDUBON's DESCRIPTION OF THE HUMMINGBIRD

GEORGE STEPHENSON, a Scotsman, was one of the world's most important inventors. He is sometimes spoken of as "the inventor of the railroad." Today our country and every civilized country is covered with a network of railways. What could the world do without them? Perhaps you imagine that we must always have had railroads. It does seem so. But George Stephenson is believed to have been the first man who thought of a locomotive; at least, he was the first to make and use one.

There had indeed been a few short railroads; that is, a kind of road made with a rail track for wagons drawn by horses. Watt and others had invented engines to go by steam. But the engines that these men made were what are called "stationary engines." A "traveling engine" was quite another thing. And it was Stephenson who had the inventive wit to make that.

Perhaps you wonder that somebody didn't happen to think of this matter of the "traveling engine " and railroads sooner. Too bad the world had to wait so long for them, for it was not until 1825 that the first railroad was opened, that between Stockton and Darlington in England.

But lest we forget it, here is the story of Mr. Stephenson and his kind and beautiful thought for a poor mother bird that had a broken heart: One day Stephenson went to an upper room in his house to close a window that had been left open for a long time. Two or three days afterward, as he was walking by, he noticed a bird dashing with all its might against the closed window'. Wondering what the bird wanted, he opened the window to see.

At once the bird flew in and went to a corner of the room, where, as Mr. Stephenson found, it had its nest. The bird looked at the nest a moment and then fluttered down to the floor as if broken-hearted. The little ones in the nest were all dead, they had had nothing to eat for so long.

Coming to the nest and finding the mother bird and her four little ones all apparently dead, Stephenson's own heart was well-nigh broken. He picked up the mother bird, who still held in her beak the worm she had struggled so hard to get to her children. Stephenson held the bird in his strong, gentle hand, trying to revive it, but in vain. It was dead. It had died of sorrow and a broken heart at the loss of its little ones. And the great inventor mourned for it many a day.

THE following interesting story about a family of robins that got into serious trouble from a string that had been used in the construction of their nest, is taken from Our Dumb Animals, official organ of the Humane Education Society.

James Russell Lowell, one of America's foremost poets, was not only a great poet, but one of the finest gentlemen America ever produced, and our country felt herself honored when she sent him to represent her as minister to England.

This great and learned man had a kind and tender heart, and not only talked kindness, but was ever ready to help the smallest of God's creatures.

When he was professor, of literature in Harvard College, he lived in a beautiful mansion in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This elegant home was surrounded by large, graceful trees. Once Lowell happened to notice a nest of robins high up in one of the trees. He was puzzled by a constant fluttering of what seemed full grown wings, whenever he went near the tree. The old birds guarded the nest and seemed very much excited when he went too near.

At last he climbed up a ladder into the tree, in spite of the old birds, and then he soon found out what was the matter. The old birds when building the nest had found a long piece of string, which they wove loosely into the nest. Three of the young birds had got entangled in the string, so that when they became full-grown they were not able to get loose.

One was not hurt very much. Another had twisted the string so tightly that one foot was curled up and had become paralyzed, so that it could not be used. The other bird was suffering so badly, because the string had worn through the flesh, that Mr. Lowell thought the best thing he could do was to kill it and put it out of misery. This he did, hurting it as little as possible. He cut the string that had caused all the trouble, and then the old birds seemed to understand what he was doing. They stopped their cries and perched so near him that he could have touched them with his hands, all the time watching him.

The young birds were so frightened that it took him some time to get them free from the tangle, but at last one of them flew away to a tree near-by. Another, the one with only one good leg, jumped from the nest, spread its wings, and tumbled to the ground without hurting itself much. It hopped away on one leg, the old birds being near and ready to help it. In about a week Mr. Lowell saw the one-legged robin again in good spirits and able to balance itself with the lame foot. No doubt, in time it got well. Long strings are dangerous building material for birds.

IT had been a long, dry season one summer in New England, and it was now well along in the month of August. The spell had been so long and hot and dry that the bumble-bees had been forced to cut through the bases of the petunias to get the last drop of nectar from them. Their tongues were not long enough to reach in from the bell of the flowers to the base, so they bored through from the outside.

As a young man of nineteen sat in the shade of his father's home at Norwich, Connecticut, one hot afternoon in this long, dry spell, he saw a humming-bird�a female bird, as he took it to be, and perhaps the mother of a brood of little humming-birds�come to the place and try flower after flower in search of some of this nectar�but all in vain. The bumble-bees had taken it all.

The humming-bird fell to the ground, as if in a faint from exhaustion, disappointment, and hunger.

The young man picked the beautiful little creature up, put it in the palm of his left hand, and quickly ran into the house and got a teaspoonful of sugar and water and placed it alongside the long, slender bill of the famished bird. As soon as it began to drink of the sweetened water it revived. Before long it partook of the prepared drink quite freely.

The young man then made a small cornucopia, or funnel, out of paper, about an inch and a half in length, in imitation of a flower, fastened the small end of this in a split stick, and, after putting plenty of sugar and water in the bottom of it, held it near the revived humming-bird. Before it flew away, it put its bill in this artificial flower repeatedly, and drank of its contents freely.

The bird then flew away, and the young man made several more of these cornucopias, or improvised flowers, and, filling them with the well-sweetened water, placed them carefully in split sticks, in convenient places near the bed of petunias.

During the afternoon the humming-bird returned several times, and, after lighting on the young man's hand, arm, or shoulder, it would fly to one of these cornucopias, the same as if it were a flower, and drink. It did this four or five times that afternoon.

The next afternoon it came four or five times again. For several days the young man kept these paper flowers supplied with this syrup or sweetened water.

This incident occurred years ago-to be exact, in the year 1873-and the young man referred to is now well up in years. Little wonder that he became a capable and experienced naturalist, traveled for years as government naturalist on the ship Albatross, and was finally placed in charge of all the biological exhibits of the New National Museum at Washington, D. C., and had the pleasure and honor of showing such men as President Roosevelt and Thomas A. Edison through this great institution. His name is Dr. James E. Benedict.

From childhood he was interested in birds and animals, and became a great lover of them. He is a most kind, sympathetic, and tender-hearted man. It hurts him, as he has told the author, to take the life of any innocent living creature.

Thus it should be with all men, and thus it would be if all the children in all the world were born and brought up as they should be, and men's and women's hearts did not become calloused and hardened through cruelty, crime, and sin.

It has been said that the quality of mercy is the finest of the human heart. The young man in this story took pity on a helpless little bird.

Be kind, dear children.

The world will bless

The heart that delights to relieve distress

The hand that is ready to offer aid

To child or animal made afraid.

Be kind.

Be kind, dear children.

The heart grows strong

That shuns to be partner with any wrong;

The noblest men that the earth has known

Have lived not unto themselves alone.

Be kind.

Be kind, dear children, and you shall see

Eyes look into yours so gratefully;

Though lips speak not, there is language yet,

And the heart of a animal will not forget.

Be kind.

-Author Unknown.

No SOONER has the returning sun again caused millions of plants to expand their leaves, and blossom to his genial beams than the little humming-bird is seen advancing on fairy wings, carefully visiting every opening flower-cup, and, like a curious florist, removing from each the injurious insects that otherwise would ere long cause its beauteous petals to droop and decay. Poised in the air, it is observed peeping cautiously, and with sparkling eye, into their innermost recesses; while the motion of its pinions, so rapid and so light, appear to fan and cool the flower, and produce a delightful murmuring sound, well adapted to lull the insects to repose.

Then is the moment for the humming-bird to secure them. Its long, delicate bill enters the cup of the flower, and the tongue touches each insect in succession and draws it from its lurking-place, to be instantly swallowed. All this is done in a moment, and the bird, as it leaves the flower, sips so small a portion of its liquid honey that the theft, we may suppose, is looked upon with a grateful feeling by the flower which is thus kindly relieved from the attacks of her destroyers.

The prairies, the fields, the orchards and gardens--nay, the deepest shades of the forest are all visited in their turn; and everywhere the little bird meets with pleasure and with food.

Its gorgeous throat in beauty and brilliancy baffles all competition. Now it glows with fiery hue, and again it is changed to the deepest velvety black. The upper parts of its delicate body are of resplendent, changing green. It moves from one flower to another like a gleam of light-upward, downward, to the right, and to the left.

In this manner it searches the extreme northern portions of our country, following with great precaution the advances of the season; and retreats with equal care at the approach of autumn.