CHAPTER III. 



FEEDING OF BIRDS IN WINTER. 



SPACE will not permit us to discuss in detail the necessity for feeding 

 birds in winter. It is sufficiently proved by the fact that in every 

 severe winter a number of birds perish from want of food, and not from 

 cold, as so many people believe. 



If we are to carry out this winter feeding in a rational manner, our 

 chief object must be to preserve the birds that remain with us during 

 the winter and those that return from the south early in spring, 

 accustoming them to certain districts. 



Birds only require feeding during and after certain changes in the 

 weather, especially during blizzards and intense frost. Careful ob- 

 servation shows that our smaller birds digest their food so quickly 

 that a very few hours of want suffice to destroy great numbers of tits, 

 tree-creepers, nuthatches, woodpeckers, golden- ores ted wrens, etc. 



The best refutation of the argument that birds become spoiled by 

 artificial feeding and no longer do their work in Nature's household 

 is to be found in Dr. Liebe's words : " All food provided for insec- 

 tivorous birds is merely a makeshift, as every bird protector can con- 

 firm. The birds find but a poor substitute, even in those arrangements 

 which are fitted up with every luxury in the shape of mealworms 

 and ants' eggs, for their natural food in woods and fields and gardens, 

 which they always prefer. This fact explains what the astonished 

 bird-lover often regards as black ingratitude, the sudden desertion, 

 that is to say, of the feeding-places when the thaw sets in." 



I would like to add that the swarms of tits, nuthatches, tree-creepers, 

 woodpeckers, etc., only come at certain hours, generally twice a day, 

 to the same feeding-place, when the weather is normal. The reason is 

 that, as a rule, they visit a certain district by the same route and at 

 fairly regular hours, and on their way visit the feeding-places just as 

 they visit trees, as long as they can find their natural food there. 



It is only when the weather prevents access to their natural 

 storerooms that they stop all day near the feeding-places, and it is then 

 that artificial feeding must come to their rescue. 



