How to Attract the Birds 



kind, underbrush, shrubbery and tangled vines to 

 hide and hunt among, no one need be told; but 

 certain trees and bushes attract certain birds more 

 than others. Some trees there are the cotton- 

 wood for example 

 which, from the bird's 

 standpoint, are useful 

 merely as perches, but 

 others furnish food, too, 

 or favourite nesting sites, 

 therefore, why not 

 choose them ? If the 

 bird-lover's door-yard is 

 so small as to hold only 

 one tree, no other one 

 will attract so many 

 feathered visitors as the 

 Russian mulberry. 

 Robins, catbirds, tan- 

 agers, grosbeaks, wax- 

 wings, orioles and 

 thrushes are not by any 

 means the only ap- 

 preciative visitors with the poor sense to prefer the 

 insipid, sweet fruit, to the best berry God ever 

 made. Scientific farmers are now systematically 

 planting mulberry trees, the shad bush and June 

 berry as counter attractions to their strawberry beds, 

 whose fruit ripens at the same time. Myriads of 

 flies, ants, wasps and other insects that come to sip 

 the syrup of over-ripe mulberries, draw insectivorous 

 birds, as well as more dainty feasters. 



Probably the next best food tree for birds is the 



10 



Photograph by Brownell 



Berries of the American holly 



