134 PROTECTION OF BIRDS. 



Nature this narrow strip on each side of his fences, though 

 she never fails to cover it with beauty. He considers it 

 an offence against neatness and order to allow Nature these 

 simple privileges, and employs his hired men to keep 

 down every plant that dares to peep out from the fence- 

 border without a license from the owner. Such a mis- 

 cellaneous hedge-row would constitute a perfect aviary 

 of singing-birds, and the benefits they would confer upon 

 the farmer by ridding his lands of noxious insects would 

 amply compensate him for the space left unimproved. 

 Then might we hear the notes of the wood-thrush and 

 the red-mavis in the very centre of our villages, and 

 hundreds of small birds of different species would cheer 

 us by their songs where at present only a solitary indi- 

 vidual is to be heard. 



From the earliest times it has been customary to en- 

 courage the multiplication of swallows by the erection of 

 bird-houses in gardens and enclosures. Even the Indians 

 furnished a hospitable retreat for the purple martin by 

 fixing hollow gourds and calabashes upon the branches of 

 trees near their cabins. It is generally believed that this 

 active little bird is capable of driving away hawks and 

 crows from its vicinity by repeated annoyances. The 

 custom of supplying martins with a shelter has of late 

 grown into disuse. The wren and the bluebird may be 

 encouraged by similar accommodations. But as these 

 two species are not social in their habits of building, like 

 the martin, a separate box must be supplied for each 

 pair of birds. The wren is an indefatigable destroyer of 

 insects and one of the most interesting of our familiar 

 songsters. The bluebird, which is not less familiar, is 

 delighted with the hollow branch of an old tree in an 

 orchard, but is equally well satisfied with a box. 



