Canadian torestry Journal, September, ipi6 



729 



pressed with the value of even indi- 

 vidual effort, though much more 

 could be accomplished if the matter 

 were handled on a little larger scale. 

 On Miner's farm there are two 

 ponds, one, thirty-five yards across. 

 the other thirty by fifty or sixty, yet 

 they accommodated between 1,000 

 and 1,500 wild geese last spring. 



Birds A' ear Home. 



Coming down to smaller things, 

 the protection of the ordinary birds 

 around the home, it is not often that 

 we can get figures that are exact 

 and reliable. In fact, not very 

 manv people have tried or have made 

 serious effort to encourage the birds 

 and increase their numbers. But I 

 was told the other day about what 

 seemed to me to be really a very 

 spectacular result. A family, resid- 

 ing in the summer on a little island, 

 about three-quarters of an acre, in 

 the Rideau Lakes, had one or two 

 cats. A visitor there induced his 

 friends to leave the cats at home. 

 Then he began to put up nesting 

 boxes to attract the tree swallows, 

 and they came at the first invitation. 

 Up to 1915, he never got enough 

 boxes up on that island to accom- 

 modate the swallows who came. But 

 this year he got up a few more boxes 

 than were needed, and. in seventeen 

 boxes, he had fifteen pairs of swal- 

 lows on an island that formerly had 

 two cats and five pairs of birds. In 

 addition he had three pairs of orioles, 

 two pairs each of five other species, 

 and one pair each of five others, a 

 total in five years of thirty-three 

 nesting pairs on three-quarters of an 

 acre from a beginning of five pairs. 

 I think that was a verv creditable 

 result indeed. 



Extermination Immin en t. 



In North America it has been the 

 habit to await practical extermina- 

 tion before anything is done for the 

 wild things, either animals or birds, 

 with the exception of the game 

 which is so highly thought of by 



the hunter. In fact there has been 

 so little done for birds that, in the 

 United States, practical extermina- 

 tion has actually taken place in the 

 case of some birds. There are some 

 birds that really require immediate 

 assistance, and, if one ventures to 

 make a prophecy, it must not be 

 considered as exact in terms of 

 years. We can never tell when the 

 last of a species is with us, and, 

 though a species that seems to be in 

 danger of extinction may remain in 

 fair numbers for years without ap- 

 parent diminution, it may then come 

 to a time when it practically drops 

 out of existence all at once. 



Borers in Stanley Park. 



TFrom The Western Lumberman.) 

 "The destruction being wrought 

 to trees in Vancouver's magnificent 

 natural park by the voracious bark 

 beetle is showing little, if any, dimi- 

 nution as a result of prevention 

 measures carried out during the 

 past two years by the park commis- 

 sioners, who were guided by the ad- 

 vice given by experts sent here by 

 the agriculture department of Ot- 

 tawa. 



"A more determined effort is now 

 being made to cope with the danger. 

 Dr." Gordon Hewitt, the head of the 

 entomological section, having arriv- 

 ed in Vancouver early in August 

 with four trained assistants, their 

 mission being to make a closer in- 

 vestigation of the extent of the dam- 

 age already done preparatory to ad- 

 vising the parks board as to the best 

 measures to be taken under the cir- 

 cumstances. 



"Dr. Hewitt suggested that the 

 aft'ected trees should be cut down 

 and that Douglas firs should be 

 planted in their places. In a few 

 years, as he pointed out. there would 

 be as fine an array of trees as the 

 citizens of Vancouver could wish 

 for, but under existing conditions 

 there was the probability of nearly 

 every tree being rendered dead, so- 

 far as Stanley Park is concerned." 



