Food, Feeding and Drinking Appliances, and 

 Nesting Material to Attract Birds. 



EDWARD HOWE FORBUSH. 



Introduction. 



"Safety first" should be the motto of all who wish to attract 

 birds about the home. Those who succeed in increasing the 

 numbers of birds will also attract birds' enemies. House cats 

 should be eliminated or confined. Mr. Hamilton Gibson of 

 Sheffield was eminently successful in colonizing birds about his 

 place, and he places the extirpation of house cats first among 

 the measures that insure success, and says that certain "acres 

 of melody," formerly his bird preserve, "have been converted 

 into a barren hunting ground" by new tenants who brought 

 cats. Dogs and cats may be kept out of any enclosure by a 

 cat-proof fence. The only one I have known to be always 

 successful is that shown in Fig. 1, which should be built of 

 fine-meshed wire netting, 6 feet high, with a fish net suspended 

 from slim poles at the top. Squirrels, particularly the red, 

 certain hawks, crows and often jays, large snakes and all other 

 creatures that destroy birds must be controlled. Tangles of 

 vines and dense, thorny shrubbery should be cultivated as 

 places of shelter and retreat for small birds when pursued by 

 their enemies. 



The first and greatest need of birds is food, of which they 

 require great quantities. Feeding the birds is not so much a 

 duty as a pleasure. The highest form of enjoyment lies in car- 

 ing for our fellow creatures. If we feed birds we may have the 

 pleasure of their lively company during the cold monotony of 

 winter on the farm. IVIany people have so won the confidence 

 and trust of certain winter birds that they will eat from the 

 hand. The cut on the title page, reproduced from a photograph 

 kindly furnished by j\Ir. Alexander Henderson, illustrates such 



