294 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLAY 



Though modern acquaintance with the nesting 

 of the storks obliges us to forego the old belief in 

 their special love for lands of freedom, there can be 

 no question that in the greatest of all Republics, the 

 United States, the desire to protect birds and to 

 attract to the home and garden, has taken the form 

 of a national sentiment. In the New England States, 

 besides the strict laws passed for the preservation of 

 the birds themselves, and against the robbing of 

 their nests, special homes are provided where they 

 may bring up their young in safety. These retreats 

 are known as ' bird houses/ and nearly every human 

 dwelling, whether mansion or cottage, possesses one 

 of them. Some are built in the most elaborate and 

 fantastic styles of architecture, while others are no 

 more than a cigar box with a hole in the end. But 

 usually a great deal of rather misplaced ingenuity is 

 expended on the bird-houses, and the New Englanders 

 delight to have opposite their windows a model of 

 a church or a large hotel, with doors, windows and 

 floors, painted white or some bright colour, and 

 stuck upon a pole where all men may behold it. 

 Sometimes a whole village decides to put up a bird 

 house as a public edifice, in which case the size, 

 paint and architecture are very grand indeed. But 

 these houses, which would answer to all the varieties 

 named in the children's game of fortune, c Church, 



