308 BIRDS IN THEIR RELATIONS TO MAN. 



from the North on its winter visit, the buds and seeds of the 

 maple are certain to receive a call. The elm, as has been 

 already stated, is the favorite with the Baltimore orioles, but 

 other birds are fond of them too. Purple finches feed upon 

 the opening flower-buds and from their summit pour out their 

 spring-tide of song. Crossbills and goldfinches visit them in 

 June to feast upon their ripening seeds, and when the seeds 

 are fallen, all sorts of seed-eaters will come to the feast. The 

 mountain-ash is often used for an ornamental tree. Its cymes 

 of red berries are quite as attractive to robins and cedar-birds 

 as to us. The dense foliage and symmetrical form of red 

 cedars render them excellent for solitary places. Spring and 

 fall, robins, cedar-birds, purple finches, and even crows, will 

 come for their berries. Bird-cherry and black-cherry and mul- 

 berry trees set along the margin of a lot will bring bluebirds, 

 thrushes, robins, and even kingbirds in great numbers, and at 

 the same time form a good background for smaller and more 

 ornamental varieties. A thick clump of evergreen trees in 

 a secluded spot will certainly be occupied at night and become 

 a centre of radiation for matin songs, and in winter cross- 

 bills and siskins will come for their seeds. A remote corner 

 planted with stag-horn sumac, barberry, catbrier, and black- 

 berry bushes, and left to itself, will become an asylum for cat- 

 birds, brown thrashers, and many other birds which ordinarily 

 nest in tangles. The bright yellow flowers and red berries 

 of the barberry bush, hanging as they do in graceful sprays, 

 are ornamental anywhere. The berries are very persistent, 

 remaining till next year's crop is well started, and are devoured 

 by many birds when other food is scarce. The bay or wax- 

 myrtle bush has an aromatic fragrance in summer, and is not 

 unsightly in quiet corners with its winter load of pallid berries. 

 A small plat devoted to it will flood the grounds with myrtle 

 warblers every fall and thereby indirectly prove a scourge to 

 insects, as these birds prefer an insect diet and turn to bay- 

 berries only when insects fail. 



