nse, my boy, but the word _citizen_ has also a
far wider meaning. Do you know what it is, Olive?" But Olive was not
sure, and the Doctor asked her to go to his study and look for the word
in the big dictionary.

In a few minutes she returned with a slip of paper from which her father
read: "Citizen--a member of a nation, especially of a republic; one who
owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it."

"Now, if you listen carefully I think I can prove to you that every bird
you can find is such a citizen of this country, and show you why we
should protect him.

"I told you the other day how the body of a bird was planned and built
to fill a place no other animal could take. Thus by his habits and
character every bird fills a place as a citizen of our Republic, keeping
the laws and doing work for the land that House People, with all their
wisdom, cannot do. Every such fellow-animal of ours, besides having eyes
to see with, and a brain which, if it does not tell him as many things
as our brains tell us, yet teaches him all that he need know to follow
the laws that Heart of Nature has set for him, has the same feelings and
affections as ourselves. Parent birds love each other and their little
ones, and often lose their lives in trying to protect them. They build
their homes with as much care and skill as House People use in making
theirs. Then they work hard, very hard indeed, to collect food to feed
their children, for bird children are, oh, so hungry! They grow very
quickly, and must eat constantly from morning until night.

"With them it is breakfast, luncheon, dinner, five-o'clock tea, and
supper, with a great many other meals between times that would not be
wholesome for House Children. So you can see for yourselves that we may
well call the bird a fellow-being."

"Yes," said Rap, his eyes beaming as if he had something to tell, "some
birds work as hard as mother does. I watched a pair of Robins all one
day last spring, when I was sick. They had a nest in a bush by our
kitchen window, where I could see it well, and all day long either the
mother or the father came about every two minutes with something for the
little ones to eat. I timed them by the clock until I was nearly dizzy,
and they seemed to do the same thing every day until the young ones flew
away. Then they went over to the grape vines, made a new nest, and
raised four more the same way"--and then Rap stopped suddenly, as if he