196 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Fig. S. — Berlepsch box and flicker hole. 



a hoop, and the whole capped by a tin or wooden cover, 

 like that of a lard pail or a berry box. Mr. Winthrop Packard 

 makes a very pretty box of roofing felt. (See Plate II., Fig. 



1 .) The best support is a slim 

 pole. 



Large wooden conductors, 

 used to carry water down from 

 the eaves of large buildings, may 

 be obtained from some dealers 

 in lumber or moldings, sawed 

 into sections, and utilized pre- 

 cisely as in the case of hollow 

 limbs. 



Baron Hans von Berlepsch 

 of Seebach, Thuringia, Germany, has invented a device for 

 making nesting boxes similar in shape to the nesting holes of 

 woodpeckers, and he has been wonderfully successful in attracting 

 all hole-nesting German birds to these boxes. 

 (Fig. 5 and Plate IL, Fig. 2.) The theory on 

 which they are built is admirable, but after three 

 years' trial of them in this country I am con- 

 vinced that most Massachusetts birds do not 

 prefer them to the hollow limb or even to the 

 rectangular box (Fig. 6) that many people have 

 used with great success. The Berlepsch style of 

 box may be better for typical woodpeckers, such 

 as the hairy and downy woodpeckers. Mr. 

 Ernest Harold Baynes reports two cases where 

 downy woodpeckers have 

 nested in these domiciles; but ^^^- 6- - Cat-proof bo.. 

 ^^,4,'^ flickers and red-headed woodpeckers nest in 

 ^ ^\^ rectangular boxes. This latter type of box is 

 excellent for bluebirds, chickadees, wrens, flick- 

 ers and tree swallows. If made 18 inches deep 

 Fig. 7. — Gourd, for blucbirds it will be very nearly cat proof. 

 The smaller sizes of the Berlepsch type have been made and 

 sold in Germany for about 25 cents each, but here they cost 

 about $1. A very fair temporary substitute may be made by 

 growing gourds which, when the contents have been removed. 



