PROTECTION OF SONG BIRDS. 343 



house of three or foilr rooms for the martin, and an\thing; from a 

 cocoanut shell to an old tin can will answer for the house wren — 

 and they are such industrious foragers, living almost entirely upon 

 insects, as caterpillars, bugs, spiders and their allies. But if the 

 wren had nothing but his little song to recommend him. one is well 

 repaid for the trouble of furnishing him a house, for he has such a 

 cheerful, musical song and is so persistent in singing. One day 

 by actual time my wren sang his little song five times in one minute. 

 Now that means a good many bursts of gladness from one little 

 throat in a day or a week. 



A line with bits of cotton string and colored thread soon solves 

 the question can birds discriminate between colors. But to learn 

 these secrets of nature one must put himself in sympathy with 

 nature. One must become a part of the scene. For instance : I 

 have a piece of suet and pumpkin seeds near a window where I sit 

 and work in the winter. Then in a moment of rest by a chance 

 look many an interesting incident I have seen of the winter birds. 

 I could tell how my blue jays come for breakfast every morning, 

 my nut hatches come for lunch, how distressed my downy wood- 

 pecker was one day when he came and found no suet in the accus- 

 tomed place, the blue jays having picked it to the nail, and it dropped 

 into the snow — and his cry of delight after searching many minutes 

 and seeing it at last on the ground. In just the little while I have 

 been interested in our song birds I have seen many things I have 

 read about and, much more delightful, many things I have never 

 seen in print. I give it very little time I would give to any other 

 work, but now the pleasure of a drive or walk is enhanced by per- 

 haps a vivid dash of scarlet as a tanager slips through the green 

 leaves, the shrike, or butcher bird, is seen to impale a mouse or 

 smaller bird on a barb of the wire fence, or nests are discovered in 

 almost everv tree. The eye is trained, the ear is educated in bird 

 songs — and where do you get such perfection as in the song of the 

 brown thrasher? And, best of all, we have awakened a feeling of 

 human brotherhood and a sympathetic interest in our feathered 

 friends. 



So much for the sentimental side of bird study, for through this 

 side we reach most people first. The practical side appeals later, 

 let us hope not too late, for our song birds until very recently have 

 been disappearing very rapidly, the main causes being the robbing 

 of nests, the gun in the hand of the small boy and the would be 

 sportsman, ornaments for hats and, by no means least, the quantities 

 of English sparrows that are spreading all over this country and 

 Canada. These causes can to a great- extent be removed. We have no 



