402 



Bird - Lore 



lar in character, and illustrated, which for 

 several years past have attracted large 

 and attentive audiences. Many of these 

 are given by men eminent in the depart- 

 ment of knowledge of which they speak, or 

 as explorers or travelers; but, if such a 

 speaker is lacking, Mr. Madison himself 

 takes the platform. The program offered 

 for the present year is varied and attrac- 

 tive, and in addition to it Miss Magoon 

 will give weekly talks to children. The 

 subjects are widely diversified, but it all 

 helps, for the more a person learns of, and 

 gets to enjoy, nature, the more certainly 

 will he be a good conservationist. Mr. 

 Madison's office is headquarters for the 

 Junior Audubon work in Rhode Island, 

 and in this line of effort he has been 

 accomplishing large results. 



Stuart Acres as a Bird Community 



Some of the most important work in the 

 field of bird- cultivation is done by men 

 'unknown to fame' until chance discloses 

 the excellent results of their wisdom and 

 energy. A notable example of this is Mr. 

 F. A. Stuart, who has been quietly dotting 

 his estate of 1,678 acres near Marshall, 

 Michigan, with bird-boxes by the hun- 

 dred (1,434 at last accounts), and doing it 

 with such scientific precision and care that 

 he has obtained most gratifying results. 

 He began to outfit his property as a bird- 

 sanctuary no longer ago than March, 

 1914; but so intelligently were the prepara- 

 tions made, and so responsive have been 

 the birds, that, although 19 15 was an 

 unfavorable season, on June 13 of this 

 year he had the happiness to find 292 

 bird-families with eggs of young domiciled 

 in his tenements, not to mention the great 

 number breeding in wild fashion in his 

 trees, bushes, and fields. About half of 

 these were Martin families, and of the 

 remainder 52 were Bluebirds, 33 Spar- 

 rows, 32 Tree Swallows, and 5 Wrens, but 



we are told that wild Wrens were exceed- 

 ingly numerous. 



These figures are neither guesses nor 

 estimates, but the result of close acquaint- 

 ance with the facts, and the detailed 

 records of inspection lie before the writer, 

 covering the exact number of nests, eggs, 

 or young found in each box on every one 

 of the six old farms combined in the 

 present estate of Stuart Acres. Add these 

 figures together and one gets the foregoing 

 summary. 



Such inspections as this are made every 

 twenty-one days during the spring and 

 summer months, and a minute record is 

 kept of whatever is found — and it is no 

 small job to keep informed of what is 

 going on in almost fifteen hundred bird- 

 houses. That only about one in five was 

 occupied this season seems a little dis- 

 appointing to Mr. Stuart; but he accounts 

 for it by the fact that probably too many 

 are near farm-buildings. He finds that 

 those more remote from buildings are more 

 freely used, especially by Tree Swallows 

 and Bluebirds. The boxes at a distance 

 from buildings are mounted on fence-posts, 

 or on iron gas-pipe eight or ten feet 

 high. Many boxes are also placed at the 

 edge of timber-lots, and a few in the inte- 

 rior of the woods. • Robins and Phoebe- 

 birds, by the way, are not counted, al- 

 though shelves and brackets are put up 

 for their accommodation. 



Despite Mr. Stuart's deductions, the 

 success achieved is certainly noteworthy, 

 and should serve as a model for the many 

 other masters of rural property who might 

 well imitate his methods. 



New Members 



The names of new members, who were 

 enrolled between September i and Octo- 

 ber 19, 1916, are entered in the general 

 list printed in this number at the end of 

 the Secretary's Annual Report. 



