j^otesi from iftelfci anb J>tubp 



Birds from a Breakfast Table 



As a busy housewife, living in the heart of 

 town, I have no time to linger under trees, or 

 take a half day off to stretch out in some se- 

 cluded nook, with a field-glass in one hand 

 and a camera in the other. But the birds are 

 my dear friends, and last November I con- 

 ceived the idea of putting up a food-board 

 near my breakfast-room window, where, at 

 least once a day, I could observe the little 

 feathered creatures. 



The porch is open to the sky, and so is the 

 food-board, a primitive arrangement of one 

 long plank nailed to two supports, attached 

 to the veranda railing. But the amount of 

 information which I gleaned, showed me that 

 any sort of feeding-place is good enough, pro- 

 viding the snow is brushed away from time to 

 time. 



I put out whole wheat bread crumbs, white 

 bread, crackers, cracked wheat, bird-food 

 which I bought from my grocer, and sun- 

 flower seeds. The latter remained longer on 

 the board than the other food, so long, in 

 fact, that I gave up placing any more out, 

 until this spring. 



Have I heard it mentioned that "English 

 Sparrows are stupid?" Perhaps the adjective 

 was used in a tone of contempt. At any rate, 

 allow me to state that the ones I fed this 

 past winter were the smartest little rascals I 

 ever saw! They must have had some 'war- 

 time' training or have been associated with 

 Hoover! They ate all the whole wheat first, 

 pushed or dropped the cracker crumbs off the 

 board, and only took the white bread crumbs 

 as a 'last resort!' They came in flocks of 

 forty to fifty, and in ten minutes every crumb 

 worth having would be gone. 



I resigned myself to the probable fact that 

 all the birds I should ever feed would be those 

 Sparrows. But, wait! One evening in Febru- 

 ary, when every tree and twig was covered 

 with a coating of ice, and I was sitting in the 

 living-room reading, I heard a beautiful 

 whistle, soft and clear. It sounded as if he 

 were saying 'thank you' over and over. I 



cautiously lifted a window-shade, but there 

 was no sign of the visitor, yet the next 

 morning my man-of-all-work reported that 

 there was a big, fat red bird a-chewin' some 

 dried grapes on the barn." And so I saw my 

 red Cardinal, all by himself. I put out quan- 

 tities of seeds, but he did not come back to 

 the board during the daytime. 



Although Robins were here March i, 

 winter had by no means left us, and that 

 food-board was decidedly overworked! One 

 big, heavy-breasted Robin, which I nick- 

 named 'General Bobby,' was the most agres- 

 sive bird I ever saw! His hunger was ever- 

 present, and he ordered every Sparrow in 

 sight to 'lay low' when he came. He pecked, 

 he chased, he dove with his beak so suddenly 

 on the Sparrows, at times, that they squeaked 

 w-ith fear. I thought he was paying up for 

 some of the mean treatment that the "wretch- 

 ed Sparrows" have, in the past, accorded 

 other members of his family. Then, after he 

 had chased them all off, he would commence 

 to gobble sunflower seeds as fast as he could. 

 But the Sparrows had no intention of giving 

 up their feeding-place, so they used strategy! 

 Four or five, at once, would rush at General, 

 and make him so furiously angry that he 

 would chase them off across the yard. This 

 was what they wanted! Then, the whole 

 feathered family would fly down to the board 

 and begin to eat rapidly. 



Later on, in the spring, Chipping Sparrows 

 came modestly, and one morning, after a 

 heavy frost, I saw, to my delight, Robins, 

 English and Chipping Sparrows, and one 

 half frozen little Tree Sparrow, all on the 

 board at once! — Emily Morrison Waite, 

 Ravenna, Ohio. 



Cardinal and Catbird 



This story presents many unusual, but all 

 true, incidents that took place during the 

 summer of 1922, in our grounds, at Nobles- 

 ville, Ind. 



A pair of Cardinals that have been in our 

 neighborhood for the last two years decided 



(343) 



