NESTING-HOUSES 67 



or drive them away, by killing them. The author 

 has taken a special interest in trying the first 

 class of devices, as he was desirous of finding 

 some method which could be recommended to 

 children, which cannot be done of course with 

 the second method. 



Perches, — The first suo^orestion to which the 

 author's attention was called was that the spar- 

 rows would not nest in houses not provided with 

 perches. Universal experience shows that this is 

 a useless precaution; the author believes, how- 

 ever, that it is a little better to construct houses 

 without perches, which only tend to give the spar- 

 rows a better opportunity to stand by the entrance 

 and annoy the other birds. 



Boxes placed low, — Another suggestion, 

 which also proves useless, is that if the boxes are 

 placed near the ground, from eight to ten feet, 

 the sparrows will become discouraged when they 

 see that the houses can be reached from a chair. 

 All the data that the author has been able to 

 obtain indicate that this makes practically no 

 difference in the nesting of the sparrows. 



Trap-door on House, — A third suggestion 

 tried was to trap the sparrow while in the house. 



