60 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



sites and insect food for the vireos, warblers and wrens which would not 

 be attracted by their fruit. The main object in planting for bird refuges, 

 besides providing food, is to furnish shelter from storm, nesting sites for 

 the birds and vegetation upon which insects will find abundant food. 

 Combinations of forest growth, second growth, thickets and tangles and, 

 wherever possible, pond-side or stream-side thickets with moist land for 

 some distance on each side of the stream will be found to furnish the 

 character of cover most suitable to a large number of birds. 



From observations on the partially cleared hillsides of southwestern 

 New York and in the groves and patches of the deciduous forest still 

 common in the center of the State, the author is well convinced that most 

 of our birds of the forest and thicket require a higher degree of humidity 

 than is usually found in brush lots and pastures which are exposed to the 

 direct rays of the sun, and that slopes furnishing less exposure to direct 

 sunlight and kept humid by sufficient cover of vegetation, are necessary 

 to attract most of our thrushes and warblers. Even the birds of the dryer 

 thickets, such as the Field sparrow and Indigo bird, must have shelter of 

 foliage to which they may retreat during the hottest portion of the day. 

 A recent report of the Conservation Commission calls attention to the 

 fact that there are in New York State at least four million five hundred 

 thousand acres of land which is more fitted to produce forest growth than 

 for agricultural purposes, but which is not at the present time covered 

 with forest. If all this land were gradually planted to forest trees, the 

 resulting growth to cover, which would gradually become fitted for various 

 communities of woodland birds, would tend to increase to a perceptible 

 degree the bird life of our domain, and if the twelve million acres of land 

 which is already covered with forest growth were managed either by the 

 clean-cutting system which some foresters advise or by selective cutting, 

 the result would be that a sufficient portion of our domain would be left 

 in the various types of woodland to attract both the forest community 

 and the community of the open wood and thicket, so that conservation 

 of birds might progress hand in hand with the conservation of our forests. 



