Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The baby and his mother never forgot the message of the mocking-bird. They have loved birds ever since. That is why they are writing this book about birds for the children. CHAPTER II. SOME PEOPLE WE LIKE TO KNOW. We are always interested in our nearest neighbors. " Who lives in the next house ? " we ask. " Are they pleasant persons to know?" and "How many children are there?" These are questions one commonly asks. But we are not speaking just now of men and women and children who live near us on our street. We are speaking of people all about us in our yard, and in your yard perhaps, —little, winged, beautiful people, who make it so pleasant with song and chirp and flutter, —the birds. We like to think of the birds as creatures better and more lovable than lizards and worms and other crawling things. We know a lady who calls them "Angels," because they have wings and seem to fly far off into heaven. No one ever jumps away from a bird, as some foolish people do from a snake or a mouse. Most snakes and mice are as harmless as birds, but they do not win their way to our hearts as the birds do. The yard or field that has the most trees and shrubs in it will also have the most and the merriest birds.Very few birds choose to live on a desert. They like shade and grass and flowers as well as we do, and fruit trees and berry bushes, and the sound of life and fun. When we see a big tree chopped down, we think of the birds who will miss it. Watch them yourselves. See how they light on the fallen boughs, and peep sadly under the wilting leaves, and twitter about their loss. Birds are like ourselves; they like to live in the places that are familiar to them, because here they feel at home and safe. We sometimes think we can hear them singing, " My country, 'tis of thee, ...