CHAPTER XXII 



Birds in the Garden 



Mr. Ghas. Livingston Bull, than whom no one is better acquainted 

 with the birds and their habits, furnishes us excellent directions for 

 making them tenantable homes, as follows: 



The bluebird and wren are the easiest to satisfy as to the outward 

 appearance of the house; probably nine out of ten native birds living 

 in artificial nesting sites are bluebirds. Almost any box, if only it has 

 a space at least four and one-half inches high by the same width, and 

 a length of seven inches or more, with a hole about one and one-half 

 inches in diameter, preferably round, at the end and not too low down 

 in that end, with some sort of perch just below it, will please the blue- 

 bird. As to outside finish, the more it looks like some natural object 

 the more sure it will be to attract the lovely little bluecoats. 



The most successful bluebird box of which I have knowledge was a 

 section of a hollow limb, in which a woodpecker had cut a little round 

 hole into the cavity. This limb, about seven inches in diameter, had 

 been sawed from the tree and a section about two feet long containing 

 'the cavity, had been cut out and wired to the branch of an old Pear 

 tree. This was used every year by a pair of bluebirds, and most years 

 two broods were raised. Think of the thousands of fruit worms and 

 curculios and other insects that went to feed the broods in that nest 

 year after year! 



I have duplicated that nest a number of times simply by cutting a 

 section of a branch or small trunk, seven or eight inches thick and a 

 foot long, boring a hole with an inch and a half bit half-way through, 

 near one end, then hollowing out a chamber, either by sawing a slab 

 off one side, which is tacked or wired on again after the chamber 

 (about 5x5x8) is hollowed out, or by sawing a section for a cap two 

 inches thick from the end farthest from the entrance hole and then 

 drilling or turning out the hollow and closing the end with the cap, 

 carefully tacked on. This house should be hung horizontally. 



If a box is to be used as the foundation of a bluebird house, cover it 

 with bark or make it of slabs with the bark on, or at the very least, 

 stain it a dark grayish brown, and if the proportions are right, the birds 

 will do their part. 



Bluebirds like to nest rather low. The house should be placed 

 either on a pole in the garden, about seven or eight feet above the 



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