. Birds and nature . egan to dance about ontheir stubs, clattering and chuckling im-moderately. It was all blind to me at first, till thegame was repeated two or three times,alwa^^s starting at the same instant with aplunge into the riffles and a rush back togoal. Then their object was as clear asthe stream below them. With plenty toeat and never a worry in the world, theywere playing a game to see which couldfirst get back to his perch and swallow his fish. Sometimes one or two of them failedto get a fish and glided back dejectedly;sometimes all three were so close togetherthat it took a deal
. Birds and nature . egan to dance about ontheir stubs, clattering and chuckling im-moderately. It was all blind to me at first, till thegame was repeated two or three times,alwa^^s starting at the same instant with aplunge into the riffles and a rush back togoal. Then their object was as clear asthe stream below them. With plenty toeat and never a worry in the world, theywere playing a game to see which couldfirst get back to his perch and swallow his fish. Sometimes one or two of them failedto get a fish and glided back dejectedly;sometimes all three were so close togetherthat it took a deal of jabber to straightenthe matter out and they always ended inthe same way, by beginning all over once saw^ two broods that had gatheredtogether for one of the rare moments whenthe kingfisher is a sociable creature. Theywere jabbering like a flock of blackbirdsbetween their plunges, forgetting for themoment that they were lonely outcasts inthe rare fun of playing their unnamedgame.—Country Life in A Solitary Fellow, With Few Pleasures and Fewer Companions to Share Them With Birds & Nature Magazine 31 Raising Squabs By H. B. BLAGKMAN ANEW industry in the MiddleWest is the raising of squabs formarket. A few years ago therewas but one large squab-raising plant inIowa. The owner guarded the methodscarefully and kept all mention of his in-dustry out of the newspapers and maga-zines, apparently hoping to keep others outof the business. Notwithstanding, otherlarge plants have sprung up all over thestate of Iowa. Nobody can monopolize abusiness with so few drawbacks as squabraising. Only a few general rules must be ob-served. The breeding pigeons must havenesting houses free from dampness anddraughts, and the yards must be safe fromcats and poultry-killing animals. They arestrictly grain-eating birds, and must bewell supplied with sharp grit, and shouldhave access to shallow water, for they arehard drinkers and good bathers. It is notnecessary that their building b
Size: 1570px × 1592px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, books, booksubjectnaturalhistory
