HOMES FOR WILD BIRDS 295 



castle, cottage, out-house, barn/ are in high favour 

 with such birds as build naturally in nooks and 

 corners of farm buildings or holes in walls and trees. 

 Their most frequent tenants in the New England 

 States are the bluebird, the house-wren, the purple 

 martin and the sparrow, a f resident alien ' imported 

 from England. 'The first to arrive from the South,' 

 writes an American friend c is the bluebird, which in 

 the States is looked upon much as the robin red- 

 breast is in England, on account of its beauty, its 

 tameness and its song. The male arrives before his 

 mate ; generally about the middle of February. If 

 the weather turns cold, he disappears again, but by 

 the end of March both birds are generally established 

 in the. room in the bird house which they occupied 

 the year before. Soon after the nest is finished, 

 another visitor arrives from the South. This is 

 the house- wren, a larger bird than its English name- 

 sake. The wrens often try to drive out the blue- 

 birds, and take every opportunity of their absence 

 to pop into the hole, and steal or throw away the 

 sticks and moss collected by the previous tenant. 

 But both are often driven out by the sparrows, 

 who maintain their post against all comers. The 

 last visitor is the purple martin, which is such a 

 universal favourite that even the wild Indians hang 

 up a gourd or a calabash under the roof of their 



