118 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. 4. 



Experiments with Nesting Boxes. 



Experiments with nesting boxes were continued at Wareham 

 during the year. The erection of numerous boxes in the woods 

 was discontinued, but a few were put up there for chickadees 

 and flickers, and two were set up on the edges of the woods for 

 bluebirds or swallows. 



Several small boxes for chickadees were placed in second- 

 growth woodland and in thickets near the ground. These, 

 evidently, were popular, not only with the chickadees but alsa 

 with deer mice, bumblebees, hornets, wasps and gypsy moths. 

 They were too accessible to cats, also, and only one brood of 

 chickadees was reared in them. Boxes for chickadees are safer 

 if raised 15 to 20 feet above the ground. 



The number of nesting boxes in the open at the Wareham 

 station was increased largely in 1916 over those of 1915 by 

 the addition of many boxes taken from the woods, but, owing 

 to unusual mortality among both old and young birds, fewer 

 young were reared in 1916 than in 1915. This appeared to 

 be due chiefly to severe, unseasonable storms in June. In past 

 years birds have had excellent success in rearing their young 

 in boxes facing to the south or southwest. Such southerly rain 

 storms as occurred in those years were brief and warm, but in 

 1916 several long and severe storms came with southerly winds, 

 and, as a result, many young tree swallows and two adults- 

 were found dead in the boxes. One family each of flickers and 

 bluebirds were destroyed also. The southerly gale blew so hard 

 and long that much rain drove into all the entrance holes and 

 even through cracks and joints. This is unusual, and has not 

 occurred before in our experience at this season, but we will 

 now try facing the entrance to the northwest, as in our ex- 

 perience in this region no long storm was ever known to come 

 from that direction. If the nesting boxes are not watched 

 closely in such cases and the dead birds removed, the living 

 ones are likely to desert both the boxes and the neighborhood, 

 and apparently some such desertions occurred in this case, as 

 the number of birds about the boxes was much greater in early 

 spring than last year, but fewer pairs bred. 



Again this year a pair of chickadees built their nest in a box 



