18 BULLETIN 4 and 5 



Bay-breasted, May 7; BlackpoU, May 4; Blaclcburnian, 



May 4; Maryland Yellow Throat, May 15; Yellow Palm, 



April 20; Pine, April 30; Red Start, May 13; Oven Bird, 

 May 7; Canadian, May 10. 



SOME IDEAL AND UNIQUE NESTING PLACES. 



BY SARA E. GRAVES. 



Among the fascinations of bird nesting is the occasional 

 discovery of a freakish selection of building sites. It is well 

 known that birds return year after year to former haunts, and 

 often build in the exact spot occupied on previous years. Robin 

 and Phoebe are, perhaps, the most common examples. A pair of 

 phoebes built year after year on the end of a board nailed to the 

 rafters of the sugar house. Each succeeding year a new nest 

 was built withm the old one, until like a pile of cups there 

 seemed no room for another. In my interest I dislodged this 

 six-storied structure, and was much gratified when phoebc re- 

 turned and built another dwelling. This latter grew to the 

 proportions of the former one before the sugar house itself was 

 torn down. 



Every year I place five pound butter boxes, with a small 

 square hole in the corner, in the apple trees around the house; 

 and I always have my tenants through the reaing of at least 

 one brood. English Sparrows cannot fly into these as I arrange 

 them, but they suit the Bluebirds exactly. 



Bluebirds or Tree Swallows have occupied for many years one 

 particular fence post in this neighborhood. The post is a large 

 knotty stub, ten inches in diameter, hollow from top to bottom 

 with three entrances, one from the top, one at the base, one 

 from a protruding knot hole a foot or more from the base. T 

 nest is quite at the bottom of the cavity. 



The men of my family found a new kind of swallow in 

 the barn; which they called "the bark swallow." A wide strip 

 of bark had become loosened, but not broken from one of the 

 rafters that hung down a half yard at least in length. Upon the 

 smooth side of this the Barn Swallow had placed her nest, and 

 raised her little ones almost to the state of self support. In due 

 time the nest was brought in for my inspection, firmly attached 

 to its foundation strip of bark. It was open as a Robin's nest 

 and luxuriously upholstered with feathers. 



