Bird Lovers as Landlords 217 



How to Attract and Protect Wild Birds^ an im- 

 ported book for sale by the National Association 

 of Audubon Societies, 1974 Broadway, New 

 York City. 



Nesting Material 



It seems reasonable to suppose that birds are 

 influenced more or less in their choice of nesting 

 sites by the amount of suitable nesting material 

 to be found comparatively close at hand. If 

 barn swallows are to nest on a particular barn, 

 there must be a supply of suitable mud within 

 easy distance, or if a Baltimore oriole has selected 

 a certain pendant branch on which to hang his 

 nest, it is safe to assume that within a rather 

 short radius may be found enough strings of 

 some kind to make an oriole's nest. And the 

 fact that birds so often avail themselves of the 

 strings, rags, scraps of paper, and other materials 

 accidentally dropped near our homes, suggests 

 the possibility that if a generous supply of such 

 nesting material were made available during the 

 nesting season, more birds would be likely to 

 nest on the premises. A great variety of nesting 

 material is used by our common birds, and there 

 is no telling to what extent this would be added 

 to if new materials were available. Since the 

 coming of the white man they have added string 



