Why Do Birds Bathe? 



129 



stood on the fence watching. If one wants to enjoy birds, the early hours is 

 the time." — Mary T. Barrett, Portland, Maine. 



A BIRD-BATH FOR YOUR LAWN 



"A lover of birds has built 

 the bird-bath shown in the 

 illustration and placed it on 

 his lawn directly in front of 

 his living-room window. Every 

 morning during the summer 

 hundreds of birds come and 

 take their daily bath. This 

 little resort has become ex- 

 tremely popular and the trees 

 round about are wonderfully 

 populated with all sorts of 

 song birds and other feathered 

 folk. 



"This bath consists of a 

 drum of sheet metal slightly 

 concave and in the center is 

 mounted a long galvanized 

 iron rod through which water 

 is piped to the spray attach- 

 ment at the top. The surplus 

 water, which amounts to only 

 five to six gallons a day, runs 

 to one edge slightly lower and 

 is piped away as shown in the 

 cut." — Dale R. Van Horn, Lincoln, Neb. 



A NUTHATCH SOAKING AND A WOODPECKER SNOW-BATHING 



"The only two unusual bathing observations I have made, however, have 

 been in the winter months, when our bird-bath has been stored away. One 

 was the Downy Woodpecker snow-bathing, my account of which was printed 

 in Bird-Lore for November-December; and the other was a White-breasted 

 Nuthatch which I saw at his ablutions this morning. 



"The soft, conversational, nasal notes of a Nuthatch made me look up 

 from my book, and I soon located the talking bird. It was perching on an 

 iron-pipe fence, fluttering its wings and preening its feathers, especially its flight- 

 feathers. After a moment, it dropped to a small puddle at the foot of a tree 

 and there splashed about vigorously for perhaps half a minute. Then it ran 

 briskly up the trunk of the tree and out to one of the small branches, where it 



