198 Wild Bird Guests 



pecker's burrow or a titmouse's burrow, not 

 a straight bore, but flask-shaped with bulging 

 sides and pointed at the bottom. He made a 

 number of such boxes, in several different sizes 

 to accommodate birds both large and small. For 

 a little while the birds showed no marked prefer- 

 ence for these boxes, but by and by he found 

 that he got most interesting results. Birds 

 which had never come to any of his other nest 

 boxes came to these, and the birds which had 

 always come to the other kinds liked the new 

 ones at least as well. He once put up two 

 thousand of these nest boxes, and seventeen 

 hundred were occupied the first year. The fol- 

 lowing year they were all occupied and he knew 

 that his experiment was an unqualified success. 

 The German Government was so much im- 

 pressed with the result of this and other experi- 

 ments of the Baron's that it has established other 

 bird sanctuaries in other parts of Germany. 

 The Grand Duchy of Hess, not long ago, put up 

 40,000 of those nest boxes in the forests to pro- 

 tect the timber. And in many villages and 

 towns, people who have no special love for birds, 

 put up these nest boxes, realizing that it pays 

 to encourage the birds which occupy them. 



Some years ago the writer imported from 

 Germany a hundred and fifty Berlepsch nest 



