SAVING MILLK >NS 



91 



THE WEATHERCOCK FEEDING HOUSE. 



Vanes, extended at either end, catch the wind 

 and turn the house broadside to the icy blasts. Thus 

 are the birds protected from direct drafts all winter 

 long. 



in hiring gardeners, carpenters, and 

 laborers to arrange things for him. 

 Just as soon as he realizes the need of 

 arranging a pile of underbrush here, or 

 repairing a feeding box there he 

 throws off his coat and "pitches in." 

 Mi-- is rather a plan of expending his 

 own individual effort and time. The 

 devices which are liberally distributed 

 about the grounds are all of his own 

 manufacture. 



Ask him what is required in a suc- 



cessful effort to attract the wild birds 

 and you get but one answer "Have a 

 heart! Put it to work! Plenty of en- 

 thusiasm, a little spare time and — less 

 money! That's what we need right 

 this moment to solve the whole prob- 

 lem !" 



"So simple, so natural, so true," 

 says Agassiz. "This is the charm of 

 dealing with Nature herself. She 

 brings us back to absolute truth so 

 often as we wander."- -David Stan- 

 Jordan in "The Stability of Truth." 



Literary Note. 



Leo E. Miller, of the Roosevelt South 

 American Expedition, writing in August 

 Bird-Lore of the destruction of bird-life for 

 commercial purposes in South America, 

 states that in one warehouse in Buenos 

 Aires he saw sixty tons of feathers of the 

 Rhea, or so-called South American Ostrich. 

 The feathers were all from killed birds, and 

 were designed to be used on the manufacture 

 of feather dusters, but their shipment 

 to the United States, the only market for 

 their sale, was prohibited by our recently 

 enacted law, which prevents the importa- 

 tion of feathers. In the same warehouse 

 Mr. Miller writes of seeing many thousands 

 of skins of the Argentine Black-necked 

 Swan, killed solely for the purpose of mak- 

 ing powder-puffs. 



The aigrette-bearing Herons, Mr. Miller 

 learned, are not only shot at their nests, 

 but are killed by scattering poisoned fish 

 on their feeding-grounds 



THE RUSTIC BIRD BATH. 

 Atlantic City may have its charms for humans, but I wonder whether they outshine the pleasures 

 offered by this novel bath to the wild birds. At times seven varieties have been observed in the "plunge." 

 They were so happy that they paid but little attention to their fellow- bathos. 



