1. Reading Lesson

Read these descriptions carefully and see if you can tell what bird each one describes. Give as many reasons as you can for each decision.

1. Oh, a winsome sight on an April day

When the clouds hang low and raindrops fall,

Is a red-breast bird in a coat of gray,

That sings and sings in the elm tree tall,

"Clear up, clear up, clear,

Clear away, clear away clear,

Oh, clear!"

- Ella Gilbert Ives.

2. He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from the mountain walls And like a thunder bolt he falls.

- Tennyson.

3. My glance of summer fire

Is come at last, and, ever on the watch, Twitches the pack-thread I had lightly wound About the bough to help his house keeping, - Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his luck, Yet fearing me who laid it in his way. Heave, ho ! Heave, ho ! he whistles as the twine Slackens its hold; once more now! and a flash Lightens across the sunlight to the elm Where his mate dangles in her cup of felt.

- Lowell.

4. I would mock thy chant anew;

But I cannot mimic it:

Not a whit of thy tuwhoo,

Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,

Thee to woo to thy tuwhit, With a lengthen'd loud halloo Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, to who-o-o.

- Tennyson.

5. He sits on a branch of yon blossoming tree, This madcap cousin of robin and thrush,

And sings without ceasing the whole morning long; Now wild, now tender, the wayward song,

That flows from his soft, gray, fluttering throat;

But oft he stops in his sweetest note,

And shaking a flower from the blossoming bough,

Drawls out ..."

- Edith Thomas.

6. I hear a bird when the days are bright, Blithely he whistles from morn to night. Timid is he and seldom in sight; How sweetly he tells his name . . .

- Christian at Work.

2. Word Studies

Find these words in the poems. Find as good a word or group of words as you can to put in the place of each.

winsome slackens mock ceasing.

crag lightens mimic wayward.

scouts dangles madcap blithely.

3. Memory Work

Read the descriptions again and copy and learn one of them. Be ready to tell what lines of your stanza rhyme.

4. Written Exercise

Write a description of some bird, and see if your classmates can tell what one it is. Make your account full and accurate, but arrange the points in such a way as to keep your classmates guessing.

Use some good words that you are not in the habit of using.