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Things to Find Out

Questions from the original Key to the Nature Library to send you back into Bird Neighbours — and out of doors.

1. What bird is called "Whiskey John" in the Adirondacks?
2. What bird is called the "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" of birds, and why?
3. What bird is pointed out as "yon slim Shakespeare on the tree"?
4. What bird in velvety grey plumage has sealing-wax-tipped wings?
5. What bird kills insects and smaller birds and impales them on thorns?
6. What is the great objection to a phoebe's nest in one's veranda?
7. What is the most dreaded foe of the young red-headed woodpeckers?
8. What three purposes does the drumming tattoo of the downy woodpecker serve?
9. What is the crow's status in the opinion of intelligent farmers?
10. How can the raven be distinguished from the crow?
11. What claim has the cuckoo upon the farmer's good will?
12. What two reasons can be named against calling the night-hawk by that name?
13. What is Nuttall's striking description of the sound made by this bird while in the air?
14. What songbirds are due to arrive in the vicinity of New York between April 1st and June 1st?
15. Name our permanent residents, and those that winter here.
16. What birds are summer residents?
17. What birds go South between August 15th and September 15th?
18. What birds are about the size of the English sparrow?
19. What birds are as long as the robin? Longer than the robin?
20. What birds are conspicuously black?
21. What birds are conspicuously yellow and orange in plumage?
22. What bird's nest is a dangling cup of felt?
23. What legend accounts for the red-stained plumage of the crossbills?
24. What colours have the mates of the male cardinal bird and tanagers?
25. What bird lines its nest with apple blossoms?
26. What bird builds its nest of lichens and bits of bark?
27. What bird's inspiring call is, "Spring o' the year!"
28. What species has a horn-like tuft of feathers over each ear?
29. What bird is an acrobat and a ventriloquist?
30. What birds are considered to be weather prophets?
31. Whose song is like the wiry trill of a locust or meadow grass-hopper?
32. What birds are provided with long spur-like hind claws?
33. How many of our bird neighbours are brown, gray, or olive, mixed?
34. What bird's song is called by John Burroughs "the finest sound in Nature?"
35. What brilliantly coloured bird is black when hatched?
36. What bird has a love song that sounds like a dirge?
37. What bird's nest is built of mud pellets like the mud dauber's?
38. What dooryard bird sings: "Maids, maids, maids, hang on your tea-kettle, tea-kettle-ettle-ettle"?
39. What bird "seems more nearly human than any of its kind"?
40. What bird's song is "like scarlet, strong, intense, emphatic"?
41. What outrageous habits have cow birds?
42. What are the most courageous birds for their size?
43. What is the reed bird's name and character during his summer up North?
44. What flowers cater to the humming-bird?