How can yon watch the birds build their nests ? Coax them to 

 come and live near yon. You can do it, if you are patient. The 

 first tliino- to do is to build a bird house. Leaflet No. 10, " The 



7 



Birds and I," gives a number of suggestions for making bird houses. 

 You can learn more by bringing the birds to you than you can by 

 going out to find them. 



Leave materials for the nests where the birds can get them. Pro- 

 vide food. They like crumbs, bones in which there is some mar- 

 row, and pieces of suet wliicli can be fastened to a tree near the bird 

 house. Be sure that tliere is plenty of water where they can find it. 



Do what you can to protect the birds from tlieir enemies. They 

 probably fear cats more than any other. If pussy is well fed slie 

 may leave the birds alone. D. Lange, in a book entitled " Our 

 Native Birds," gives a good suggestion for keeping cats out of trees. 

 He says : " Surround the tree about five feet from the ground, or 

 just below the branches, with several coils of barbed wire about two 

 feet wide." 



POLISTES, THE PAPER MAKER. 



Last month we spoke of Yespa wasps 

 that make homes of pape;-. You learned 

 that they bite off pieces of weather- 

 worn wood witli their jaws and chew it 

 until it is made into pulp. Were you 



interested in tliese social wasps? If so, 

 Home of rolideit, the jtivper ti i 



y,mker. 3'^^^ ^^^y ^^^® *^ \\Q2^\: about another mem- 



ber of the same family. 

 Hiding in some crevice about your liouse or the school building 

 there is probably a wasp which naturalists call Po-lis'-tes. She has 

 been there ever since the cold weather came. In the spring you 

 may see her tearing off pieces of wood from some unpainted build- 

 ing or weather-worn fence. Let us see what she is going to do. 



Tliis wasp is tlie founder of a colony. Tlie first thing she does is 

 to select a place for her liome. Then she makes a few cells — only 

 a few for she has no help. When you find a nest like the one in 



464 



