SCHOOL DEPARTMENT 



Edited by MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 



Address all communications to the Editor of the School Department, Nationa 

 Association of Audubon Societies, 141 Broadway, New York City 



Some Pros and Cons of Winter Feeding 



WHEN one begins to feed birds in winter, the single object of keeping 

 them alive is the keynote that soon passes on to a harmony of re- 

 sults — the presence of birds in added numbers, the consequent 

 ■cheerfulness of the outdoor winter scene, and then the pleasure of making a 

 few real friends among the more fearless birds. 



Presently there comes another aspect of the matter; the undesirability of 

 feeding three of the four chief enemies of the very bird one is striving to pro- 

 tect — the red squirrel, the rat, and the cat; the other one of the quartet, the 

 snake, being rather unhkely to be attracted by bird food. Not only must the 

 feeding-places be arranged so as to keep the animals away for the birds' sake, 

 but also for the sake of the adjoining householders. 



For several years I had concentrated my feeding efforts upon two lunch- 

 counters. That for winter was on a shelf on the old apple trees, while my sum- 

 mer station was on a stone wall between some woods and the garden-house, — 

 so placed for the satisfaction of seeing how many of the insect-eating birds, like 

 the Wood Thrush, Catbird, Thrasher, etc., I could attract, even in the height 

 of the season of plenty. For a time all worked well, then the food on the wall 

 table began to disappear with astonishing rapidity, taking the visible numbers 

 of lunchers into account. Finally, one morning, I discovered that a horde of 

 rats were lodging not only in the convenient chinks of the rough stone wall, but 

 were making runs to the foundation of a wood tool-house close by, where rats 

 had never before been seen. Then started a crusade of trapping and poisoning 

 by putting strychnine in clams on the half-shell, which could be pushed into the 

 wall out of harm's way. But, in spite of success in the trapping, the password of 

 *'good eating" seemed to have spread through the rat kingdom, and the pro- 

 cession now seems endless. 



To get the shelf out of rat reach, it was mounted upon four heavy long- 

 necked glass bottles, up which the rats could not climb. For a few days all 

 went well, then the food vanished as before. This time it was quickly traced 

 to a broken and over-hanging branch, from which the red squirrels swung down 

 and leaped back easily. The tray was moved to a treeless space, but the birds 

 did not like it; and after a week's time the counter was overturned and the 

 bottles broken by a large brindled tramp cat, that was tall enough to stand on 

 the fence and rest her paws on the tray, while feeding. 



(20+) 



