BIRD HOUSES AND HOW TO BUILD THEM. 



Ordinary wooden boxes, if clean, can be made into bird houses by 

 merely nailing on a cover and cutting out an entrance hole. Such 

 makeshifts are rarely weatherproof and are never pleasing to the eye. 

 Branches containing real woodpecker holes, when ob- 

 tainable, are perhaps the best attraction that can 

 ' }) be offered most house birds in the breeding season. 



\p By carefully fitting such a branch to a fruit or shade 



d 



FK;. ">.< rounls for wrens or bluebirds. 



FIG. 6. House made 

 from hollow log. 



Flu. 4. Gourds ar 

 ranged for martins. 



tree its foreign origin will scarcely be noticed. The 



house shown in figure 6 is suitable for use in trees. 



It is made from a log or large branch, hollowed by 



decay, and fitted with a top and bottom as illustrated 



in the figure. The cover 



is to go on after the log is 



fastened in place. Either 

 the top or bottom should be removable. 

 Methods of doing this are shown in figures 

 23 and 26. Another way of making a log 

 house is to split a straight-grained log 2 

 feet or more in length through the middle 

 and then to cut out a cavity with a gouge. 

 The excavations in the two halves can be 

 made to match exactly by means of a 

 pattern or template having the size and 

 shape desired for the proposed cavity 

 through the plane of cleavage. Figure 7 



shows the appearance of such a house and how to place the template 

 symmetrically on each half of the stick. The top of this house 

 should be covered with tin or zinc to keep out moisture. The halves 

 should be fastened together with screws to allow the house to be 

 taken apart and cleaned. 



