232 BIRD FRIENDS 



Bird Guests," writes very enthusiastically of the 

 VonBerlepsch type, and prefers it to any other type. 

 He cites twelve species of birds known to use these 

 boxes, of which three species, the hairy and downy 

 woodpeckers and the red-breasted nuthatch, have 

 never been known to use any other type. On the 

 other hand, Mr. Edward H. Forbush, after three 

 years' trial of the Von Berlepsch type conies to 

 the conclusion that most Massachusetts birds do 

 not prefer them to the hollow kind or even to the 

 rectangular box. But the only way of finding out 

 is to put up the different types of houses, side by 

 side, and see which the birds choose. This has been 

 done by several men and the results in these cases 

 were that most birds showed a preference for the 

 plain-box type over the hollow-log type. This pref- 

 erence doubtless varies for different birds and pos- 

 sibly for the same species in different parts of the 

 country. 



So far as the author has been able to gather evi- 

 dence on this question, the following seems a fair 

 statement of the case at the present time: Wrens, 

 bluebirds, and tree swallows will occupy almost any 

 convenient type, perhaps preferring the plain wooden 

 box; the chickadee and flicker will probably select 

 one type as quickly as the other, while other wood- 

 peckers, such as the downy and the hairy, and the 

 nuthatches, which have not occupied bird-houses 

 so commonly, may prefer the hollow-log type. It 



