THE LITTLE BROWN BIRD.

Forest and Bird, Issue 9, 1 June 1925, Page 12

THE LITTLE BROWN BIRD.

A. H. MESSENGER.

NANCY McKENZIE.

(A story for the Children.)

Billie and his small sister had been playing all the morning on the ten-foot square of grass doing duty for a lawn in front of the suburban cottage. A low hedge enclosed this, and from it’s leafy depths they first heard the mysterious sounds that attracted their attention. So faint were these sounds that possibly nothing less acute than the ears of children would have paid any attention to them. As it was, Billie looked solemnly at Mary, who gazed back in similar manner at her brother, while the tiny “cheep! cheep!” came from somewhere about them. “It must be fairies!” whispered Billie with one finger lifted to enjoin caution. “It must!” said Mary, whose brown eyes were big with excitement.

Keeping very still, they gazed about in an attempt to discover where the sounds came from. Then a tiny brown form about the size of Billie’s thumb popped out of the hedge, paused a moment on the grass almost at the children’s feet, and then seemed to vanish over the gate. Billie scrambled to his feet. “I knew it was a fairy!” he said; “and I’m sure there must be another lost in the hedge! Can’t you hear it crying?” . “The poor thing! Do let’s help it!” and Mary hurried to the place where the brown stranger had first made its appearance. Here the tiny voice was plain enough and in a moment more the children had discovered that it was coming from inside a beautiful little round-shaped house of moss and twigs. “Why it’s a nest!” exclaimed Billie. “I didn’t know fairies lived in nests ' “P’raps they’re lost’ed,” snggested Mary. “Don’t you ’member how. Peter Pan lived in a nest?” “What if it ‘is’ Peter Pan?” said Billie, drawing back a little. “Let’s see!” answered his sister, who knew that Peter Pan and his friends were good fairies who loved children. So she pressed the leaves aside, and peeping through a round hole in the side of the nest saw four little pink throats widely opened and below them queer fat bodies covered with white down. “Why! Why! Goodness she cried, “they’re dear little baby birds! Oh! Billie what teeny, wee things!” There was a flutter in the hedge above them, and there sat the daintiest little brown bird imaginable. Her little wings fluttered ceaselessly, and her bright beady eyes seemed to take in all that was happening beneath her. All her breast and throat were white, and this made her appear more fairylike than ever. The children were enchanted. If it were not a fairy, at least it was the nearest approach to one that they had seen; and stepping back with clasped hands they watched the little bird flutter down and enter the nest. When father came home from the city that evening, two excited children met him at the gate, and led him to the magic spot. A dainty brown head filled the doorway to the nest and the tiny voices they had heard before were silent.

“Why! its a grey-warbler,” said father, “I didn’t think that any of them would be found so close to town. You children must be very careful not to frighten the parent birds away, and then you can watch them feeding the little ones.”

Day after day, Billie and his sister watched with delighted eyes the coming and going of the two parent birds and each day the tiny voices they had heard first grew stronger. Then one morning, hearing a loud twittering in the hedge, they hurried round just in time to find a strange "black and white cat crouching on a branch near the nest. Her ears were flattened down, and her eyes glowed angrily, for the two little brown birds were fluttering about just out of reach and darting at her as though about to peck her. “Oh! She’s after our baby birds!” cried Mary, and picking up a stick she struck the cat so hard over the nose that it jumped hurriedly from the hedge, and ran under the house. • “What shall we do now?” said Billie. “That bad cat is sure to come back again.” “We must watch all day,” answered Mary, “and ask daddy to keep the cat away at night when we are asleep.” Father was rather startled when he came home to hear that he was expected to watch a bird’s nest all night. However, when he tucked the two children into bed after tea, he promised that he would keep the baby birds safe and you shall now hear how he did it.

It was quite dark when he went outside to see if the cat had come back yet he distinctly saw a dim shape hovering above the hedge. Although it was a good while since he had been a body he guessed what that shape was, and picking up a stone threw it so straight that the shadowy thing floated off. Father said, “I thought so! It’s a good job I came out or those small babies wouldn’t have lasted long!” Then he wondered what was to be done, for with a hungry cat prowling about the garden it seemed as though nothing could save those wee birds. Presently he thought of a plan, and going into the shed, he brought round a large box and some pieces of stick. With these he made a figure four trap on the lawn and

baited it with a piece of raw meat, and smiling to himself went inside. In the early morning before the children were dressed, he went out to the lawn, and there was a very angry cat crouched under the box. Father smiled to himself and getting a sugar bag from the kitchen managed to finally get puss inside it.

“I thing those little birds are worth a dozen of your kind,” he said to himself, and no one ever saw that black and white cat again.”

The trap that caught the cat

A young New Zealand girl writes:— Puriri, Thames Valley. Dear Sir, — you please admit me as a member of the New Zealand Native Bird Protection Society. Twentyfour of the school children, inclnding myself, brought a half-penny each, and wished me to represent them. Hoping this will be all right.

We should like to hear of others acting like Miss Nancy McKenzie and her 23 school mates.