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Published monthly by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Connecticut 



Subscription, $1.00 a year Single copy, 10 cents 



Entered as Second-Class Matter June 12, 1909, at Sound Beach Post Office, under Act of March 3, 1897: 



Vol 



ume 



VII 



DECEMBER. 



Number 7 



An Efficient Student and Protector of Birds. 



BY NEIL MORROW LADD, Belle 



VISIT to the home of Ray- 

 mond B. Thompson at 

 Greenwich, Connecticut, 

 is an inspiration to one in- 

 terested in birds and their 

 protection. 



When the visitor enters 

 the long road leading to 

 Mr. Thompson's house, he is impressed 

 by the careful planting of shrubs ana 

 evergreens, and the careful neglect of 

 some natural brier patch, where shy 

 birds find nesting sites. When he 

 leaves the grounds beyond the lake, 

 upon which paddle various species of 

 ducks, the enthusiast has found count- 

 less indications that he has been in a 

 private sanctuary for the birds. 



Close to the home one sees a Ber- 

 lepsch food house where the birds may 

 always find a supply of hemp, white 

 millet and sunflower seeds. During 

 the winter there is never a hall hour 

 when some bird resident or visitor can- 

 not be found enjoying this practical 

 bird lover's hospitality. The writer 

 knows that Mr. Thompson buys seed 

 in hundred pound lots to meet his 

 feathered guests' appetite and de- 

 mands. 



Haven, Greenwich, Connecticut. 



Under the eaves one will find 

 shelves, each five inches square, set in 

 place for phoebes, and this year one 

 of them has been occupied by these 

 tireless flycatchers. Close by on trees, 

 are suet holders which woodpeckers,, 

 nuthatches and chickadees visit daily 

 in the winter, to supplement the insect 

 diet that they glean from Mr. Thomp- 

 son's hard wood forest. 



Scattered everywhere are rustic 

 wren boxes. To give the birds what 

 little encouragement they need, tin- 

 cans have been tacked to trees, and this 

 vear within a stone's throw of the 

 house twelve pairs have raised families, 

 in them. 



Where the house plot ends and the 

 woods begin are about ten scpiare 

 yards of tangle that would make a 

 modern gardener frantic, but where the 

 wild grapevine has woven a cover 

 seemingly secure enough to walk 

 on. In this untamed thicket catbirds, 

 brown thrashers, thrushes, robins and 

 song sparrows this summer success- 

 fullv reared their young, while above 

 it, on a horizontal limb, wood pewees 

 built their nest and made it beautiful 

 with lichens. 



