Feathered Familiarity.

“British Birds” was the Council schoolteacher's subject to his class of small boys, delivered in the open.

Having duly impressed upon his boys the beauty of our wild birds' song in their freedom, and the cruelty of robbing their nests, he proceeded to enumerate various acts of their tameness and approach, when they recognised the donor of tit-bits of their food and water during a dry spell. He was anxious to test their knowledge, so concluded: “Only last week,” said he, “I sat in my suburban garden, under a larch tree bareheaded, when a certain brown bird with a speckled breast actually alighted upon my head. Now, then, which of you can name that bird?”

Swiftly a youthful treble replied: “A woodpecker, sir.”

* * *