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Young Knights of the Empire

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Birds will build in almost anything which offers them safety and shelter; an old kettle, for instance, or an old tin pot is a favourite site for a nest. If you scatter a few crumbs or grains of corn about your box every day at first, the birds will become accustomed to it, and will soon adopt it as their home. Any Scout who has not a tree of his own to hang his box on can probably get leave to put it up, if he asks nicely, in some neighbour's wood or garden, or in a park, and can then visit it from time to time to see how it is getting on. Most nesting-boxes have their roof, or front, on hinges, or made so that it can slide off; but it does not do to examine the nest when once it is made, or the old birds will desert it. * * * * * BIRD MIGRATION. The movements of birds as they change their quarters still puzzle the naturalists. It is marvellous how they seem to like travelling, and no one can understand why they take certain paths through the air when they are doing it. For instance, the black pool warbler, in America, spends its summer in Alaska, and goes down to South America for the winter. It takes the straightest course it can from Alaska to Brazil, flying over land and sea--and a wide sea, too, is the Gulf of Mexico. But the cliff swallow, which also spends the winter in Brazil and the summer in North Canada, takes quite a different route, and goes an extra 2000 miles in order to avoid going over the sea, and follows the land all round by Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, and so through the United States. The distances which birds cover when "migrating" are enormous. Some American plovers are known to travel for 8000 miles, one part of the journey being 2500 miles without resting as they pass over the sea. The arctic tern goes even farther, it nests near the North Pole, and then makes its way down to near the South Pole, a journey of 11,000 miles. Perhaps you wonder how we know that the birds travel these long distances. Well, a good many naturalists and stalkers catch birds when young or tired and mark them by putting a small ring round their leg with a number on it. Then other naturalists keep a look out in other parts of the world, and when they kill or find a bird with such a number on it they report it. Aberdeen University marked a large number of birds in this way--with a tiny aluminium ring round the bird's leg, with the words "Aberdeen University" and a number on it. A wild duck which they had marked in Scotland was caught in a net the same year in Holland. Of five lapwings marked in Aberdeenshire, four were shot in Ireland the same year, and one in Portugal, 1250 miles away. A song-thrush was also shot in Portugal, which had been marked in Scotland the same year. A young guillemot was taken from its nest in Aberdeenshire and marked, and less than five months afterwards it was shot in Sweden. So, you see, it is interesting to watch in this way what the birds do in the travelling line. Scouts can help in keeping a look out, and if ever they capture or hear of a bird marked with a ring, they should report it to Professor A. Thomson, The University, Aberdeen. They should state the number on the ring, the kind of bird, where found, and the date on which it was found. * * * * * STUDYING ANIMALS. The boar is certainly the bravest of all animals: he is the real "King of the Jungle," and the other animals all know it. If you watch a drinking-pool in the jungle at night, you will see the animals that come to it all creeping down nervously, looking out in every direction for hidden enemies. But when the boar comes he simply swaggers down, with his great head and shiny tusks swinging from side to side; he cares for nobody, but everybody cares for him; even a tiger drinking at the pool will give a snarl and sneak quickly out of sight. I have often lain out on moonlight nights to watch the animals, especially wild boars, in the jungle, and it is just as good fun as merely going after them to kill them. And I have caught and kept a young wild boar and a young panther, and found them most amusing and interesting little beggars. The boar used

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