332 Junior Naturalist Monthly. 



Of course, every Junior Naturalist '^dll have one. In making your 

 bird house, note the following: 



The floor space should be about six inches by eight inches. 



For wrens and chickadees the doorway should be an inch-and- 

 a-half auger hole. For tree-swallows, or martins, the doorway 

 should measure two inches. For bluebirds an inch or an inch-and- 

 a-quarter. A perch should be placed beneath each doorway. 



See that your bird house is out of reach of cats and other enemies. 



A LETTER ABOUT BIRD HOUSES. 



25 Franklin St., Saratoga Springs, N. Y. 



Jan. 3. 1905. 

 Dear Uncle John: — 



When I finished my bird house last spring, I did not set it up 

 because the English sparrows would drive all the song-birds away 

 and build a nest in it for themselves. 



About the last of May, when all of the sparrows had built their 

 nests, I set it up in a horse-chestnut tree in my yard. No birds 

 came for about two weeks and then finally a pair of bluebirds made 

 the house their home. 



About four weeks after they came, I heard something chirping 

 in the nest, so I climbed up the tree, and foimd two young bluebirds 

 about two days old in it. When these were about half -grown, the 

 old birds had another young pair. The old birds would always be 

 watching their house and they would fly around my head and try 

 to make me get down, when I tried to look at their little birds. 

 They stopped until the last of September and then each pair left 

 separately. 



We thank you. Uncle John, for telling us how to build bird houses 

 and why? Because we had learned how to take care of the birds 

 that Colonel Brown told us about when he was in Saratoga last 

 fall. Sincerely yours, 



Willie Waring. 



You will not care to wait as long as Willie did to put your bird 

 house out-of-doors, nor would I advise you to do so. If the doorwa}^ 

 is made small enough, I think that the bluebirds will have an oppor- 

 tunity to occupy it. 



