88 BIRDS OF THE WEST 



away. Cut the hole in the box the size of a silver quarter to keep 

 the sparrows out. Put up two boxes if you have time, for they 

 will enjoy making use of both of them if not otherwise occupied. 

 You will enjoy watching them work. You will see them put in 

 sticks that you would never think they could handle and you will 

 find this very impatient bird a bird of remarkable perseverance. 

 Then when they have carried in enough sticks and straws and 

 what-not, they'll lay a feather bed on top of them and Jennie 

 will lay from six to nine tiny, finely dotted pink eggs and if you 

 go near the home then, you'll get an awful scolding for Jennie 

 is just a bit shrewish. When the stork finally lands, the real 

 work begins and woe to the ant colony that happens to be near 

 for it had better hide those eggs and woe to all other tiny living 

 things for business ! There are many mouths to feed and a whole 

 house to keep clean too, and if there is a tidy little house-keeper 

 in the world it is Jennie. 



Of course they don't have to have fancy bird-houses, they 

 will use almost any suitable place. I have seen a nest in a rural 

 mail box, in an old shoe, in a hole, in a brick wall. They would 

 almost build a nest in your hair if you would keep your pocket 

 full of ant eggs. 



As birds nest near the best feeding-grounds, it is needless to 

 say that wrens are of great service to you, especially if you have 

 a garden, and as they are always in danger of cats it is well to 

 place your wren-box where a cat can't reach it. Some friends 

 of mine whose cat had killed a mother wren, took the baby-wrens 

 into their home to raise them and to keep the little fellows well 

 fed it took three of them the greater part of their time and one 

 day after they had begun to fly they thought they had lost them 

 but later they found them snuggled down in a cup at the top of 

 their chandelier. Their experience became one of the happiest 

 of their bird-memories. 



