296 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



elaborating a little the simple art of feeding the hungry, 

 though the dietetic science as taught by some of the 

 professors has a touch of absurdity in it. However, it is to 

 be confessed that some very astonishing results have been 

 achieved in Germany by the scientific baron who has devoted 

 himself to the work of encouraging birds to breed and feed 

 and have their being in his garden and park and woods. 

 The baron is a sort of latter-day Winterton ; and however 

 formal his methods, they are not without hints for us in 

 England, whether we have a two-thousand acre park, like the 

 wonderful sanctuary at Woburn, or a rectangular rod, pole or 

 perch close to London or other town — indeed within the 

 city pale. No one could more profitably follow his example 

 than the public authorities who attend to the parks and the 

 live things in them. 



The baron has made a speciality of feeding apparatus and 

 nesting apparatus, for birds will come first to those places 

 where they can find most suitable food and nesting places. 



Food, however, comes first, and food is a subject that 

 really requires a certain amount of scientific thought, such as 

 Baron Burlepsch has spent on it. The most engaging of all 

 his devices is what has been called the Christmas tree and 

 plum pudding arrangement. The tree can either be a real 

 tree — for preference, a small spruce, such as those sold for 

 Christmas trees — or it can be a made-up tree, artificially put 

 together in the manner practised on a large scale by Mr. 

 Thomson Seton in his sanctuary in New York State. In a 

 garden the tree can be put up within sight of the window. 

 This tree is to play the part of a widow's cruse. It is to ooze 

 plum pudding, as it were, as a fir-tree oozes resin. It is a 

 not uncommon practice to smear boughs with the remainder 

 of the breakfast porridge reinforced by crumbs and scraps ; 

 and birds of all sort appreciate it highly. But the baron has 



