I034 Rural School Leaflet 



slender pole several feet above the fence, clothes pole, or outhouse, to 

 which it is attached. The pole should be strong enough to prevent it from 

 swaying in the breeze, and yet sufficiently slender to protect it from 

 marauding cats. Sometimes if squirrels are abundant, it is necessary to 

 place a metal shield about the pole in order to prevent them from climbing 

 to the nest for the eggs or for the young. The pole should be near a build- 

 ing, a dead tree, a telephone wire, or other natural perch. Wrens and blue- 

 birds also may frequent this box, but they prefer to have a tree in the 

 immediate vicinity. Boxes placed seven to twenty feet up in a tree 

 generally prove more attractive to the latter birds as well as to the chick- 

 adees and nuthatches; but care should be used to guard the tree from cats 

 by shields of metal or wire netting. As exposed a position as possible 

 should be chosen for the site yet one that is more or less shaded from 

 the sun during the heat of the day. It is better to have the box face 

 toward the South. 



" Frequently boxes placed on the house or the school building, below 

 or beside an upper window, prove attractive to wrens, swallows, or blue- 

 birds, and are then near enough for observation. These boxes, however, 

 arc frequently overrun with English sparrows and are generally unsuc- 

 cessful for that reason. 



" The best results with bird boxes are always obtained by studying the 

 habits of the birds of the neighborhood that nest in holes, and by reproducing 

 their nesting conditions as nearly as possible." 



V. Make a bird calendar and have it ready to record the birds as they 

 come back from the South. The migration table on page ii of the 

 teachers' leaflet will help you in this. 



VI. Ask your teacher to let you have an examination on the winter 

 weeds that you find above the snow. Who will know the greatest number? 



VII. Of the trees for study this year, how many can you tell in winter 

 and how can you tell them? Ehn, locust, hemlock, beech, birch, cedar, 

 chestnut, white pine, pitch pine is the list. 



VIII. Remember the notebook on the horse that you are going to send 

 us. We would like all these notebooks by May i, in order that we may 

 look them over and make the award before the schools close. You 

 remember that we promised to send a book on the horse for the school 

 library in the school from which we receive the best notebook. In the 

 November leaflet next year we shall give a report of this competition. 



IX. Some Friday afternoon you may enjoy an hour looking over seed 

 catalogues in preparation for garden plans. It is well for boys and girls 

 in the country to know what is being sent out from seed houses, because 

 good gardeners must always be up to date in matters of this kind. We 

 know many scholarly people who enjoy happy winter evenings looking 



