The Audubon Societies 



185 



A 'MISSION' MARTIN HOUSE 



it. It is a replica of a Spanish mission, containing sixteen rooms of size given in 

 U. S. Bulletin No. log. There are over five hundred tiles upon the roof, each one 

 of which was made from rough stock lumber. 



The large group of houses were built from slabs, the waste product of a 

 walnut lumber firm having a contract to make gunstocks for the armies of 

 France and England. 



All the houses were built to be placed in Forest Park, the home of thousands 

 of 'house-nesting' birds. — Chas. P. Coaxes, Instructor in Manual Training 

 (Marquette School), St. Louis Schools, St. Louis, Mo. 



[Communications are printed as soon as space permits. If delays seem long the 

 Editor of the School Department begs the reader's favor. The good work described 

 above is in line with progress. — A. H. W.] 



HOME OBSERVATIONS IN THE SOUTH 



My papa loves the birds and feeds them on the window-sill every winter. 

 We had twelve different kinds of birds that ate from our window. One day a 

 Mockingbird came for his breakfast while mamma was jilaying the piano. 

 He turned his head first to one side then the other and looked at her for a long 

 time. I think he was trying to learn the tune so he could whistle it to his mate 

 while she sits on her nest this spring. One day I went for a walk with papa 

 and we met two Mockingbirds that kept scolding us. We looked in a small 

 pine bush and saw a pile of twigs. Papa held me up and I saw four little birds 

 in the nest, and they had no feathers on them but they wore real black. About 

 a week later we went to the nest again and when papa held me up the little 



