The children stood still for a minute, speechless with surprise and delight.  Then Dodo made a rush for the Doctor’s chair, and hugging him round the neck, cried, “Dear Uncle Roy, will you please let us stay in here a little while, so that we can learn what sort of animals birds are, and all about them?  And will you tell Nat why you let yourself shoot birds when you won’t let him?” Here Dodo stopped, both for lack of breath and because she knew that her sentences were mixing themselves dreadfully.

“So you have been here two whole days without finding me out,” said the Doctor, seating Dodo comfortably on his knee.  “Aren’t you afraid of the old ogre who keeps so many birds prisoners in his den, and bewitches them so that they sit quite still and never even try to fly?  You want to know about birds, do you, Miss Dodo, and Nat feels grieved because I won’t let him pop at our feathered neighbors that live in the orchard?  Oh, yes, my boy, I know all about it, you see; Cousin Olive has been telling tales.  Come round here where I can see you.  I can answer your question more easily than I can Dodo’s.  Don’t look ashamed, for it is perfectly natural that you should like to pop at birds until you learn to understand the reasons why you should not.  It was because you two youngsters have seen so little of Nature and the things that creep and crawl and fly, that I begged you from your parents for a time.

“House People are apt to grow selfish and cruel, thinking they are the only people upon the earth, unless they can sometimes visit the homes of the Beast and Bird Brotherhood, and see that these can also love and suffer and work like themselves.

“Now, my boy, before we begin to learn about the birds I will partly answer your question, and you will be able to answer it yourself before summer is over.  Animal life should never be taken except for some good purpose.  Birds are killed by scientists that their structure and uses may be studied—­just as doctors must examine human bodies.  But if you kill a bird, of what use is its dead body to you?”

“I would like to see if I could hit it, and then—­I—­guess,” hesitating, “I could find out its name better if I had it in my hand.”

“Ah, Nat, my lad, I thought so; first to see if you can hit it, and perhaps because you want to know the bird’s name.  Did you ever think of trying to cut off one of your fingers with your jack-knife, to see if you could do it, or how it is made?”

“Why, no, uncle, it would hurt, and I couldn’t put it on again, and it wouldn’t do me any good anyway, for I could find out about it by asking a doctor, without hurting myself.”

“Yes, that is right; and for the present you can learn enough about birds without shooting them yourself, and if you learn your lesson well you will never shoot a song-bird.”

“May we see the book you are writing, Uncle Roy, and learn all about the birds out of it?”