WORK OF THE MERIDEN BIRD CLUB 



153 



the window fits snugly and a door 

 through which to put the food. The 

 box is of course entirely open on the 

 garden side and projects into the room 

 for about a foot. The birds seem to 

 enjoy it thoroughly and it adds such a 

 cheery tone to the room that many who 

 have seen it have become enthusiastic 

 and have made similar boxes. Into this 

 window box come woodpeckers, blue 

 jays, juncos, chickadees and other birds; 

 they are practically in the room with us 

 with only a sheet of 

 glass between and we 

 are able to observe 

 them and to photo- 

 graph them at our 

 leisure. 



The birds have be- 

 come so well ac- 

 quainted with the 

 people in Meriden 

 and their friendly at- 

 titude toward them 

 that it seems as 

 though there is no 

 limit to their tame- 

 ness and especially is 

 this true of the chick- 

 adees. They alight 

 upon our clothing 

 when we go out, they 

 perch upon the barrels 

 of our guns when we 

 walk abroad in pur- 

 suit of their enemies, 

 and they even come to take breakfast 

 with us. At first when they would fly 

 into the dining-room, they would seize 

 the nuts scattered on the table for them 

 and then be off, but in order to urge 

 them to stay longer with us and to show 

 them how welcome they were, we 

 stitched the nuts to the tablecloth — and 

 they stayed. 



Another thing that we have attempted 

 to do for the birds is to provide them with 



A lady's hat where birds are safe 



houses and nest boxes so attractive that 

 they would stay with us to make their 

 nests and rear their young. The martins 

 had not been seen in Meriden in twenty- 

 five years and one of our aims was to 

 attract them. We made houses from 

 flour barrels and the martins did come 

 back and although they did not actually 

 nest with us they went so far as to tear 

 out the nests of the tree swallows, and 

 I think that next year they will decide to 

 build. The humming birds would come 

 with the lilacs and 

 leave when they had 

 faded, but with the 

 use of bright artificial 

 flowers in which were 

 hidden vials of honey 

 and water we per- 

 suaded them to stay 

 with us throughout 

 the summer. An old 

 shed of ours had been 

 a favorite nesting 

 place for the phoebes 

 and when it became 

 necessary for us to 

 part with the shed it 

 seemed as though we 

 might lose the birds 

 too, but shelves that 

 I tacked up inside the 

 veranda have served 

 their purpose well and 

 the phoebes continue 

 to visit us. For the 

 bi-rds which naturally nest in holes in 

 trees, we imported nests that are exact 

 facsimiles of their own but we had so 

 much trouble about importing them that 

 we now make them ourselves. 



Bird baths have formed another inter- 

 esting feature of our work and last 

 summer we observed eighteen different 

 kinds of birds bathing at one of the baths. 

 We placed flat stones in some of the 

 baths so that the birds can go into the 



