"There is where you are very much mistaken, Miss Dodo. Everything works
for its living in some way. Take, for example, the birds that you are
going to study. They have to build their own houses, and feed their
children, and travel about every year on their own particular business."

"Travel--do birds travel?" cried both children in the same breath. "Oh,
where do they go, and what for?"

"Father will tell you about that. Now you must do what he said--each
find a bird, and see if you can describe it. Suppose we sit on this
great root. It belongs to the oldest tree in the orchard, and
Grandmother Hunter used to play house up in the top of it when she was a
little girl. Father told me he had a perch up there when he was a boy,
so that he could watch the birds. Perhaps, if you are careful and really
want to keep quiet and see the birds, he will have one fixed for you."

"How jolly!" said Nat. "Sh-h! I see a bird now--such a queer little
thing--it's running round like a mouse. Oh! oh! it goes just as well
upside down as any other way." And Nat pulled out his pencil and book
and waited for the bird to come in sight again, which it was kind enough
to do very soon.

"Size"--wrote Nat, struggling with his pencil, which would squeak,
because he had foolishly put it in his mouth. "How big would you call
it?"

"Little," said Dodo promptly.

"Kind of little, but not so very. I've seen smaller in the Museum," said