A New Feeding-Slab 



By WM. E SAUNDERS. London, Ont. 



SO MANY of Ihe readers of Bird-Lore are interested in feeding the 

 winter birds that this magazine ought to be a medium for the exchange 

 of ideas on that subject. 

 Few of us Hve where we are not troubled by the EngUsh Sparrows, which 

 therefore must be reckoned with before we can successfully feed our native 

 birds. I have done constant work in trapping Sparrows for two or three years, 

 and have been amazed to find that one can practically exterminate them in 

 his own back yard, even though they may be plentiful within a distance of a 

 hundred yards, or even less. But we are learning all the time that birds are 

 local in their habits, and this is only another proof added to the many that 

 have gone before. 



I have used the large box-trap, originally recommended, I think, by the 

 Department of Agriculture, into which the Sparrows enter through spaces 

 left at the top. I have also used a trap of the Dodson type, and while both of 



M^~^- 



^ 11'^ I' l^-' rV .''U- i M'l >V. '^A -.k .1 ■■; ,| | 



THE SAUNDERS FEEDING-SLAB 



these are moderately successful, yet I find that they make the Sparrows very 

 wary, and they do not give results that are at all comparable to those obtained 

 by the use of a plain trap consisting of a shallow open box in which the bottom 

 is replaced b} wire netting. This box is held up by a stick 7 or 8 inches long, 

 and a string attached to the stick leads to the living-room window. Millet seed is 

 kept constantly under the box, and the Sparrows feed under it safely; and when 

 a Sparrow gets the habit of coming to my yard at all, he soon finds the food- 

 supply, and I notice that the seed is diminishing daily. The supply, however, 

 is kept up, and some fine mornin/g I find one or more Sparrows under the trap, 

 when there is an opportunity to pull the string. 



In the spring of igi6 I kept both a Dodson trap and a box-trap set through- 

 out April and May. The Dodson trap caught one Sparrow and the other caught 

 about twenty, and these were, of course, wary old birds. Another great 

 advantage of the box-trap is that it is used constantly by all the visiting and 

 resident native Sparrows as a food-supply, and they act as unconscious decoys 

 for the House Sparrow. The trap is, of course, perfectly safe for the natives, 

 as I never pull the string except for House Sparrows, and it is very amusing 

 to see the absolute disregard with which the Chippies and others steal my bait, 

 for to me the trap forms the best place for feeding native Sparrows. 



(14) 



