Choose a pleasant, sunny room for your bird social, deck it with green boughs and foliage, and provide places for a number of cages. Invite the Juniors all to come, and ask those that have canaries or other pet birds in cages to bring them. Of course this social must be held in the daytime, and in mild if not warm weather. If the moving is done gently, the birds will enjoy the social as much as the Juniors, or even more, and you will have a gay concert. Let some experienced bird-owner give a little talk to the Juniors on the best ways of caring for their birds. It will be likely to save the life of some feathered songster, for not every one, however careful and tender-hearted, understands just how to keep the pets happy and healthy, as birds should be when at their best.

It may interest the Juniors to know that one of King Edward’s latest fancies is improving the singing of English canaries. He has had fitted up in Windsor Castle a large aviary to which hundreds of English canaries have been sent. Here bird-trainers from Germany are busy improving the voice of the English canary by means of “bird-organs” and the suggestion found in hearing the better-voiced German canary sing. The birds pass through a regular course of singing-lessons, and take from three to six months to “finish.”

After the talk about caring for birds, which should be so informal that the children should feel free to ask questions, a little fun is introduced in the way of a bird-guessing game, conducted as follows:

Write on a blackboard, or blackboards, part or all of these twenty-four questions, which are plays on the names of well-known American birds. The guests should be provided with paper and pencils. Half an hour should be allowed for the guessing. At the end of that time everybody should pass his list to his right-hand neighbor and correct the list which has been handed to him. Some one should read the answers slowly.

1. The way some English people pronounce a word which means “yell.” (Owl—howl.)

2. A letter of the alphabet. (Jay—J.)

3. The bird that chews its cud. (Cowbird.)

4. A bad-tempered William. (Crossbill.)

5. The royal bird that is fond of a hook and line. (Kingfisher.)

6. A good time in a field. (Meadow-lark.)

7. The bird that ought to win every race. (Swift.)

8. The bird that is like a baby before it can walk. (Creeper.)

9. The bird that Yale ought to like. (Bluebird.)

10. The bird that whacks everybody. (Thrasher.)

11. The bird that is almost as important as the Pope. (Cardinal.)

12. The bird that you mustn’t stroke the wrong way. (Catbird.)

13. The bird that is “talk.” (Chat.)

14. The bird that you never ought to do just because you have beaten your friend at checkers or something. (Crow.)

15. An unusually small sample of a well known vegetable. (Peewee—pea wee.)

16. A bird that is almost “her glove.” (Hermit.)

17. A bird that can fly when there is plenty of wind. (Kite.)

18. Where bread is baked. (Ovenbird.)

19. Something found on a tree and then put in a nest for a certain purpose. (Nuthatch.)

20. A bird that is always thieving. (Robin—robbin’.)

21. A bird that makes good coasting. (Snowbird.)

22. A bird that spanks an unfortunate boy having a common first name. (Whip-poor-will.)

23. The bird that is a sweet-smelling tree. (Cedar-bird.)

24. The sparrow that the hounds like to chase. (Fox-sparrow.)

Most of the time will be spent in comparing experiences and pets, and the Juniors will go away more than ever resolved to be kind to their little feathered friends, which are among the most beautiful and most helpless of God’s creatures.