10 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



inant, were not the onlj' singers. Redwings gurgled from the 

 little cedars along the fences, and Grackles from the greater 

 cedars; Meadow Larks chattered and fluted from ground and 

 fence and air; Field Sparrows uttered their little plaints from 

 low singing stations here and there ; everywhere Snowbirds 

 twittered; and a solitary Song Sparrow bubbled up his notes 

 from tubes that seemed ill-])racticed. 



If bird boxes argue a love of birds, the people of eastern Bur- 

 lington County, both in the pines and without, must be written 

 down great bird-lovers. Some cynics, not native, whom I con- 

 sulted on the presence at every other house of a bird box, held 

 that it rather indicated plenty of time on the part of the house- 

 holders. I have heard the same explanation of the "Martin 

 poles" in the little mountain villages of eastern Kentucky. 

 Two native Brown's Millers whom I questioned were amused 

 that any one should wonder why people put up the boxes. 

 " People always put up bird boxes," was their comment, and 

 they disclaimed my suggestion that the boxes were put up for 

 Martins. "Just for any kind of bird that came along," they 

 said. I had had it in mind that as this was a country favored 

 for chicken raising the custom had arisen from the well-known 

 utility of Martins as clamorers over hawks and their pursuers. 

 "They perhaps put up the boxes in old time, when there were 

 more Martins, to attract them and through them save their 

 chickens from the hawks and crows," I thought, "and the 

 practice has continued now when the Martins are scarcer." 



Certainly now Bluebirds and Whitebellied Swallows and 

 EnglLsh Sparrows occupy many of the boxes, although Martins 

 are still plentier hereabouts than in most places in the Delaware 

 Valley. It is very usual to see two boxes to a house, a larger 

 box with several openings great enough for Martins, and the 

 little box for one pair of Wrens so common in all of our country 

 that has the House Wren. One house had three Martin boxes, 

 of marvelous architecture, and a most ojipressive bottle-green. 

 These boxes boasted loggias, porticos, steeples, all those extrava- 

 gances that so delight the habitual whittler. Next door, a hun- 

 dred yards down the road, and next to that again, the Martin 

 box had just been remounted. In both places the unweathereU 



