OUR SUMMER BOARDERS — THE BIRDS. 25 1 



OUR SUMMER BOARDERS-THE BIRDS. 



OLIVER GIBBS, PRESCOTT_, WIS. 



We have always been friendly to the "feathered people" at 

 our house, have provided for their wants as well as our own in 

 garden plantings of such fruits as they like and sometimes fed 

 them crumbs and other kitchen refuse ; but it was only last 

 spring that we began to entertain them as regular "summer 

 boarders" with a table set for them where they could come and 

 eat three times a day, same as ourselves, and between meals as 

 often as they liked. 



We first set a post to put their table on. Afterwards we used 

 a six inch box elder near the corner of the house, sawing it 

 squarely off six feet from the ground and sheeting it with tin 

 near the top to keep the neighbors' cats from climbing it. Then 

 to prevent the cats from jumping up we tacked on a square yard 

 of limber wire screen, laying it flat on top of the tree stub, so 

 that it projected from all four sides and just under the table. 



The table itself was nothing but a piece of board twelve by 

 fifteen inches, with two inch strips of batten stuff nailed on the 

 edges and a small opening left at one corner to take out the 

 sweepings. Above it, tacked to one side, extended a perch made 

 of lath, about fifteen inches high. 



Having no domestic animals to feed we placed on this bird 

 table all the bits and scraps of food left from our dining table, 

 and the kitchen refuse of everything edible, and often a piece 

 from the cupboard or pantry shelf that was not refuse. And 

 they rejected nothing of all this except the pickles. 



Nearly if not quite all the species of birds that came to the 

 table would pick the meat and fish bones clean. The larger birds, 

 such as the grackles, the jays and the red-headed woodpeckers, 

 liked potatoes ; him of the scarlet crest seeming to prefer some 

 dry, hard piece, like a baked potato skin or a crust, that he 

 could amuse himself with by flying off with it and pounding it 

 on a near-by tree. The tree sparrows preferred the bread 

 crumbs. With these in their mouths they were often seen flying 

 away to feed their nestlings. The thrush family seemed espe- 

 cially delighted with bits of cake, cookies, etc. 



One day when I laid a piece of gingerbread on their table a 

 cat-bird found it first. It was a pet bird of mine that the neigh- 

 bors' boys rescued from a cat four years ago and brought to me, 

 as it was too young to fly well. I gave it a room for a week or 

 two, feeding it bread and milk till it was quite tame, then let 



