238 BULLETIN 19 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



school students of conservation and others. It took about 50 boxes to 

 cover 38 miles of one road, and he placed 150 boxes along another 68 

 miles of road. He says: "All of these boxes are standardized, have 

 removable tops, and by the time the entire project is complete will 

 include nearly one thousand Bluebird boxes. Magazines and news- 

 papers have printed copies of my plans and because of such publicity I 

 feel that in many sections of the country, similar projects will be 

 carried on." In a previous paper (1935) he says: "In no case did two 

 birds nest closer than a quarter of a mile." His nests were placed 

 from 3 feet to 10 feet above the ground, apparently mostly nearer 3 

 feet than 10, "and on posts away from human habitation. If the box 

 is placed on the pasture side of a post away from the wires, cows use 

 the box to scratch their backs, so I try to attach them to the wire-side 

 of the post. This protects them from cattle and likewise makes it im- 

 possible for cats to molest them." He gives further useful instructions 

 for making the boxes, to which the reader is referred. 



Mrs. Amelia R. Laskey has sent me some elaborate notes on another 

 interesting and successful project, of which she says: "Nest boxes for 

 eastern bluebirds have been placed in Percy Warner Park and the ad- 

 joining Edwin Warner Park to increase the numbers of this species 

 arouDd Nashville, Tennessee. Staiting in 1936 with 26 boxes, others 

 have been gradually added so that 63 have been available the past 

 three years." In one of her published papers (1939), she says that 

 Percy Warner Park "consists of 2141 acres * * * much of it 

 wooded hills, with many miles of winding automobile roads, bridle 

 paths, and hiking trails, interspersed with picnic grounds, shelter 

 houses, and homes of park employees. On the outer boundaries are 

 numerous meadows, bordered on one or two sides with narrow thickets 

 of trees and undergrowth. These meadows provide excellent sites for 

 the Bluebird nest-boxes that have been placed there. * * * Of 

 the 37 nest-boxes available in 1938, 36 were used, at least once by 

 Bluebirds, with a total of 104 sets or 460 eggs laid, an average of 4.42 

 per nest." 



A. Dawes DuBois has sent me his data for 15 nests, observed in 

 Illinois, Minnesota, and New York. Five of these were in bird boxes, 

 three in holes in fence posts, two in hollows in apple trees, two in other 

 tree cavities, two in old woodpecker holes, and one was in a telephone 

 pole. 



M. G. Vaiden writes to me from Mississippi: "This bird is a fairly 

 common nesting bird in the hill section of our State, especially from the 

 central hills to the northward until reaching the Tennessee line. 

 They select any suitable site where they think it possible to hide a nest, 

 as a gate post and natural cavities in trees, and I found a nest in a 



