57 



Duchy of Hesse, and the well-known ornithologist, Pastor Klein- 

 schmidt, who was there at the time, were able to verify the fact that 

 there were 73 nests in the same wood in a distance of 110 yards one 

 nest, that is to say, to about every one-and-a-half yards. It is certainly 

 worth noticing that, with two exceptions, these nests were built in the 

 artificially-produced whorls. 



Where no good land can be obtained for shelter- woods, ground that 

 cannot be used for agricultural purposes, quarries, clay pits, and sand 

 pits, steep slopes, dead angles in fields, in farmyards and gardens, 

 ditches, sloping banks, outskirts of meadows, pastures and commons, 

 etc., should be laid out on the same principle. 



Every copse already in existence, every bush, park, even separate 

 hedges arid groups of trees, may be used more or less as shelter-places 

 if the directions given above are carried out as far as possible. It has 

 been sufficiently proved by practice that these shelter-woods will lead 

 to very good results if introduced into districts where birds are 

 scarce. For this reason the authorities encourage the planting of 

 shelter-woods for birds in vine-growing districts as the best means of 

 encouraging the settlement of birds which prove so useful a remedy 

 against the Eudemis botrana and the Tortrix pilleriana, and as the best 

 protection for the woods.* 



(B) Plantations in general. 



Shelter- woods must serve more or less as a model wherever growing 

 fences or hedges are planted, where roadsides, streets, railway embank- 

 ments, banks of rivers and ponds are planted, and where undergrowth 

 is planted in the woods, if they are to be useful for protecting birds. 



In proof of this, we find at Seebach a number of devices which serve, 

 first of all, to attract birds to settle, and also to connect the shelter- 

 woods with one another and with the park. 



A hedge of firs, growing for about 547 yards at the side of a ditch, 

 deserves special mention. It is planted on one side with pollards, on 

 the other with mountain ash (see illustration). This fir hedge, now 

 thirty years old, was planted in three rows with a space between the 



* The largest of these plantations, laid out strictly in accordance with the 

 preceding directions, is at present growing up between Eltville, Steinberg, and 

 Kloster Eberbach. The bird shelter-woods lie between the valuable vineyards, 

 and comprise about five acres. 



