No. 4.] BIRDS ON THE FARM. 143 



times craAvl out of the mouths of the young birds, and 

 escape. 



The blackbirds, brown thrushes and towhees kept well 

 away from the house the first season. Dogs, cats and boys 

 evidentl}' had made them distrustful of the neighborhood. 

 A little grain scattered about, in the spring of 1902, brought 

 several blackbirds and a pair of brown thrashers. The 

 blackbirds soon became quite tame, and remained about the 

 place until they retired to the mcadoAv late in May to breed. 

 The brown thrashers came to the dooryard all summer, in 

 search of crumbs and fragments of grain, and finally became 

 quite tame. Neither these birds nor the towhees seemed 

 to be attracted to the garden, although the towhees came 

 into it much during the late summer. These birds are 

 all useful in the garden,. provided they can be induced to 

 frequent it. None of them injured anything in it, except 

 that the towhees picked up a few ripe gooseberries. Some 

 of the birds which are known to be conspicuously useful in 

 the garden did not stay with us, although they were occa- 

 sionally heard singing in the early spring. 



Those who have followed me thus far may begin to sur- 

 mise that for some reason birds were not exceptionally 

 numerous in this locality, so well fitted for their homes ; 

 such indeed is the case, and the reason is not far to seek. 

 Bk'ds have been protected here to some extent for years, 

 so far as the encroachments of the gunner are concerned, 

 but their natural enemies have greatly increased in the 

 mean time. All the swallows and most of the bluebirds 

 have been driven away from the neighborhood b}^ the 

 English sparrows. Most of the smaller birds which had sur- 

 vived the attacks of their various enemies failed to breed, 

 for either the eggs or young were destroyed. No doubt 

 this state of things ought sooner to have been remedied ; 

 but I desired first to study the influences which diminished 

 the numbers of these useful creatures, so as to be quite cer- 

 tain what means to take for their protection. 



My experience here during the past two years, taken in 

 conjunction with the experience of the previous twenty-five 

 years, leads me to believe that the enemies of birds stand 



