Nearly all of our native birds are migratory, that is they go south for the winter.  The date that we may look for them to return is almost the same year after year.  Some few birds—­bluebirds, robins, cedar birds and song sparrows will stay all winter if it is mild but as a rule we must not expect the arrival of the feathered songsters until March.  The phoebe bird is about the first one we shall see.

In April look for the brown thrasher, catbird, wren, barn, eave and tree swallows, martins, king birds and chipping sparrows.  In May the principal birds of our neighbourhood will return—­thrushes, vireos, tanagers, grosbeaks, bobolinks, orioles.  The game birds—­quail, partridge, meadowlarks and pheasants do not migrate as a rule.  At least they do not disappear for a time and then return.  When they leave a neighbourhood, they rarely come back to it.

All the song birds begin nesting in May.  Consequently we should have our bird houses “ready for occupancy” May 1st.  It will take about twelve days for most birds to hatch their eggs.  Some varieties will hatch three broods in a season, but two is the usual rule.

We shall require a great deal of patience to tame the wild birds.  Some bird lovers have succeeded in teaching birds to feed from their hands.  A wild bird that is once thoroughly frightened can probably never be tamed again.

A crow is a very interesting pet.  Crows are especially tamable and may be allowed full liberty around the dooryard.  We must get a young one from the nest just before it is ready to fly.  Crows are great thieves and are attracted by bright objects.  If you have a tame crow, and if any member of your household misses jewellery or thimbles you had better look in the crows’ nest before you think that burglars have been around.

The chief difference between tamed wild animals, such as squirrels, birds, owls, foxes, crows and so on, and the domesticated animals and birds, dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, pigeons and chickens, lies in the possibility with the latter of modifying nature and breeding for certain special markings, colours or size.  All breeds of chickens from the little bantams to the enormous Brahmas have been bred from a wild species of chicken found in India and called the jungle fowl.

All the great poultry shows held throughout the country annually are for the purpose of exhibiting the most perfectly marked specimens of the breeders’ skill.  This is decided by judges who award prizes.  The competition is sometimes very keen.  In barred Plymouth Rock chickens, for example, there are sometimes a hundred birds entered to compete for a single prize.  The breeders are called fanciers.  The principal breeders of certain animals such as rabbits, pigeons or poultry, form an association or club and agree to an imaginary type of the animal called the ideal or “Standard of Perfection.”