BIRD 



738 



BIRD 



them. Some birds will return season after 

 season to the same nesting place after they 

 learn that comfort and shelter can there be 

 enjoyed. Children should be urged to build 

 homes for the little summer visitors, for in 

 this way they help to protect the birds as 

 well as to make the premises about the home 

 delightful throughout the season. Below are 

 given directions for building a type of bird 

 house that the children will enjoy working 

 upon. The two pages of drawings and the 

 page of colored pictures accompanying this 

 article show various kinds of bird homes that 

 can be constructed by any children who are 

 familiar with simple tools. 



The children who built the house occupied 

 by the Wrens used %" stock of white-wood, 

 and it and the other houses on the Terrace 

 were made so they could be nailed against a 

 barn, a post or a tree (see page 739) . The roof 

 provided a protective overhang. Six pieces 

 of wood, the shapes and sizes of which are 

 shown in Fig. 1, were used in making the 

 house selected by the Wrens. These pieces 



were nailed together with %" brads, making 

 what are known as butt joints, as shown in 

 the working drawing (Fig. 2). The top edge 

 of the front piece and the two end edges of 

 the roof were carefully beveled, in order to 

 secure the proper pitch or slant of the roof. 



To protect the house from the weather, and 

 also to make it an attractive feature of the 

 garden, two coats of outside paint were 

 applied when the house was built. The four 

 sides and the bottom were painted white. 

 The roof received two coats of orange coach 

 paint. On the sides of the house were painted 

 simple tree-shapes, in green. The shapes of 

 these decorations were first cut from paper, 

 as shown in Fig. 3. The unit developed in 

 this way was placed three times on the sides, 

 and twice on the front of the house. The 

 shapes were traced with a pencil on the white 

 paint, as shown in Fig. 4. The tree shapes 

 were then carefully filled in with green paint, 

 and the trunks and bases with orange paint. 



Fig. 5 shows two completed wren houses, 

 with the color schemes indicated. B.S. 



Nests of the Birds 



Of all the wonderful things which the 

 bird-lover discovers about his favorites, there 

 is nothing more wonderful than their nest- 

 building power. How can young birds in their 

 very first spring know how to set about build- 

 ing a nest exactly like the one out of which 

 they were forced, as awkward fledglings, in 

 the summer before? The parent birds are not 

 near to instruct them, and yet the nests are 

 in practically all instances as. perfect as were 

 those built by their parents or their grand- 

 parents. It cannot be explained, this curious 

 nest-building instinct; it must ever remain a 

 mystery. 



Purpose of Nests. In one sense, a nest is not 

 a home. Two robins building their first nest 

 do not pick out the spot that suits them best 

 and fashion a structure which will afford them 

 most comfort, but they build with one pur- 

 pose in mind to provide a place in which 

 eggs may be laid and brooded until they 

 hatch, and in which the young may be pro- 

 tected until they are ready to take care of 

 themselves. The nest is in a sense the little 

 birds' nursery, in which they live and are 

 happy until they are ready to start out into 

 the world; but very, very few of them ever 

 come near the nest again once they have 

 learned to fly, and even the parent-birds 



abandon it when it has served its one pur- 

 pose. But for that one purpose it is remark- 

 ably well adapted, and each bird builds just 

 the type of nest which fits its own need. 



Variations in Nests. In nothing do the 

 various birds differ more widely than in the 

 kinds of nests they build, and it is very inter- 

 esting to observe the growing perfection of 

 the nests as the birds rise higher and higher 

 in development. In part this is because the 

 higher orders of birds are more intelligent, but 

 largely it is because the young of these higher 

 forms are more helpless. The "chicks" of the 

 domestic fowl, of the ostrich and of various 

 other birds have a full covering of down 

 when they are hatched, and are very soon able 

 to run about and seek food for themselves, but 

 the young of the birds of flight, and especially 

 of the song-birds, are utterly helpless and 

 require the protection of a carefully-built nest 

 and the watchful care of the parents. So an 

 ostrich merely makes a hole in the warm sand 

 and there deposits its great thick-shelled eggs, 

 while an oriole, on the other hand, fashions a 

 most curious and wonderful structure, in which 

 its eggs and its helpless young are compara- 

 tively safe from reptiles and other preying 

 animals. In general, the nests of the smaller 

 birds are the more beautiful. 



