HOW TO ENCOURAGE BIRDS TO BREED 



this diet is supplemented, the great majority of the 

 birds will be forced to migrate elsewhere. Birds 

 which are fed during times of food scarcity almost 

 always remain and breed in the neighbourhood, and 

 unless persecuted they will spend their lives there. 



A special feeding place should be chosen in a 

 sunny situation sheltered from winds. 

 The birds will soon find the spot and 

 assemble from all over the neigh- 

 bourhood to feed. As time goes on, 

 greater numbers will be attracted, 

 until there will be enough birds to 

 exterminate the species of insects and 

 allied forms of life which prey on the 

 scanty winter vegetation. The birds 

 during the winter months do not con- 

 fine themselves to capturing active 

 adult insects. They seek out and 

 devour the eggs and chrysalides of 

 insects — the eggs which otherwise 

 would have hatched when the crops 

 were young and succulent in the 

 spring-time, and the chrysalides from 

 which adult insects would have 

 emerged on the advent of warmer weather. Half of 

 these insects would have been females capable of laying 

 from a hundred to many thousands of eggs, according 

 to the species. Apart, therefore, from the joy the pre- 

 sence of birds around our homesteads afford us, it is 

 highly advantageous, from an economic point of view, 

 to encourage birds to stay on farms in winter-time. 



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Basket filled with 

 loose string, 

 wood fibres or 

 grass for nest 

 building. 



