“When places become thickly settled, and villages grow into towns and
towns into cities, one of the first things that troubles the father and
mother of a family is to find house-room, a suitable place to live, that
shall be healthful for the children, and yet not be too far from the
father’s work, and many and many a family have had to move to
inconvenient places because such a home could not be found near by.
“Strange as it may at first seem, our little fellow-citizens, the birds,
have this same trouble.
“In an open, half-wooded farming country there are plenty of nesting
haunts, and running brooks and ponds for the birds who need water by
their homestead. But presently perhaps a railway comes by; the land is
bought up and the woods cut down for railway ties, the brush is cleared
from old pastures and they are turned into house-lots. Old orchards,
like ours here, are done away with, and everything is ‘cleaned up.’
“This is as it should be, and a sign of progress; but where are the
birds that Nature has told to nest in tree hollows, like the Bluebird,
Chickadee, the Tree Swallow, Downy and Hairy Woodpecker, and the jolly
Yellowhammer, to find homes?
“You will often hear people say, ‘It is too bad the Bluebirds are dying
out;’ but if somewhere about the place you will fasten a hollow log or a
square bird-box with a single round opening in it to a high fence-post
or to a pole set up on purpose, you will soon see that the Bluebirds
have not died out, but that they have been discouraged in their
house-hunting.
“It is a mistake to make bird-houses too large, or to have many rooms in
them, unless you are hoping to attract Purple Martins, who like to live
in colonies. Birds like a whole building to themselves quite as well as
people, and they do not like people to come too close and peep in at
their windows and doors, either.
“Autumn and winter are the best seasons for making and placing
bird-boxes; it gives time for them to become ‘weathered’ before nesting
time, and birds are apt to be suspicious of anything that looks too new
and fine, and I have a plan that I think you will like by which you boys
can not only make bird-houses for your own yards and farms, but make
them to sell to others as well.
“It is also a kind act for those who live on farms to leave a few stacks
of cornstalks or a sheaf of rye standing in a fence corner as a shelter
for the game-birds, who are often driven by cold to burrow in the snow
for cover, and, frequently, when the crust freezes above them, die of
starvation.
“Doing this is wise as well as kind, for it helps to keep alive and
increase these valuable food-birds, and makes better sport for the
farmers in the time when the law says they may go a-hunting.
“Of course, in every country school even, there are children who do not
live on farms, but these can club together and do what they can to feed
and shelter the birds that come about the schoolhouse. You have all seen
Goldilocks’ lunch-table for feeding the winter birds, and though Sarah
Barnes would like to have such a one down at the school, others perhaps
may think it foolish.
“As you already know, some birds eat insects and others seed foods, or,
to put it another way, some birds prefer meat and some bread; so if you
wish to suit all kinds you must feed them with sandwiches, made of both
bread and meat.
“‘Sandwiches for birds!—how foolish!’ I hear some one say. Stop and
think a moment, and you will see that it is merely a way of expression,
a figure of speech, as it is called.
“Give the birds the material, crumbs, cracked corn, hayloft sweepings,
bits of fat bacon, suet, or bones that have some rags of meat attached,
and they will make their own sandwiches, each one to its taste.
“If this food is merely scattered upon the ground, it will attract mice,
rats, and other rodents, but if a regular lunch-counter is prepared for
the food you will find that the birds will appreciate the courtesy,
become liberal customers, and run up a long bill; this, however, they
will pay with music when spring comes.