A CHAPTER ON BIRDS. 



I5Y ORNITHOLOGY. RHODE-ISLAND, 



An article in the October number of the 

 Horticulturist, recommends giving accom- 

 modations to wrens in and about our en- 

 closures. 



Permit me to give the character of this 

 little bird, without scandal, vouching for 

 the truth of every charge, which may he 

 confirmed by the observation of any one. 



One pair of blue birds will destroy more 

 injurious insects than six pair of wrens, — 

 the food of the latter being partly spiders. 

 There is another objection to the wrens; 

 they will drive away from their district any 

 other bird, by destroying their nests and 

 eggs. A neighbor of mine shot eleven of 

 these little pirates in one season, after 

 which the swallows, blue birds, robins, 

 sparrows, &c, returned and rebuilt their 

 nests. Where there is room enough, every 

 house should have about it from one to ten 

 bird boxes — all single — made of half inch 

 boards, four and a half by six inches, in the 

 clear, inside. The hole, or door, should be 

 two inches in diameter, made near the up- 

 per end, with a perch broad as the box, like 

 a shelf, tenoned in, two inches below it, and 

 projecting three inches, the outer corners 

 rounded. The piece which forms the back 

 part of the box should extend beyond the 

 rest, either up or down, about four inches, 

 by which the box may be screwed or nailed 

 to a building, or the trunk of a tree. They 

 should never be placed nearer to each other 

 than forty feet ; and it is best that no one 

 be visible from another, as birds are jealous. 

 A bird house, with accommodations for 

 more than one pair, is useless, except for 

 martins ; as no other [wild] birds live in 

 communities in tenements thus provided for 



them. The martins here were nearlv all 

 destroyed by a very cold N.E. storm in the 

 latter part of May, twenty years since ; and 

 I may add the swallows, which feed wholly 

 on insects on the wing. That storm con- 

 tinued until they starved ; no winged in- 

 sects left their retreats for upwards of ten 

 days. Since that time, few martins ha- 7 e 

 been seen in New-England. In their place, 

 we now have the white bellied swallow, 

 which before were rarely seen ; but they 

 require separate lodgings, not nearer than 

 thirty feet. The clift, or Eocky Mountain 

 swallows visit us in great numbers, attach- 

 ing their nests of mud, (sometimes resem- 

 bling an inverted retort,) to the eaves of 

 houses and outbuildings. 



Eobins, and some other birds, will build 

 their nests in the same place, year after 

 year, if the old nests be removed before 

 they return in the spring. 



The late Gardner Green's gardener once 

 entrapped a flock of winter birds by baiting 

 them in the green-house, where he kept 

 them until spring. Acting upon this sug- 

 gestion, an acquaintance of mine com- 

 menced feeding birds on a piazza, fronting 

 south, in the month of November, at the 

 first fall of snow. A little millet seed was 

 first thrown upon the platform, which soon 

 attracted large flocks of tree sparrows, snow 

 birds, lesser redpoles, and occasionally a 

 few song sparrows, and still less frequently 

 a solitary white throated sparrow. The 

 fox sparrows came in the fall from the 

 north, and stopped again on their return in 

 the spring. Oily seeds, hemp and sun- 

 flower, and the kernels of various kinds of 

 nuts, were next tried, which attracted the 



