The Winter Feeding of Birds 



231 



should be appointed as Bird Steward, his or her duties being to collect the 

 scraps after the noon dinner hour and place them neatly on the counter, 

 the crusts and crumbs on the shelf and the meat to be hung on the 

 spikes. 



■'Nothing will come amiss — pine cones, beechnuts, the shells of hard- 

 boiled eggs broken fine, apple cores, half-cleaned nuts; and, if the children 

 will tell their parents of the counter, they will often put an extra scrap or 

 so in the dinner-pail to help the feast. Or the fortunate children whose 

 fathers keep the market, the grocery store, or the mill, may be able to ob- 

 tain enough of the wastage to leave an extra supply on Friday, so that the 

 pensioners need not go hungry 

 over Sunday. 



"All the while the flag will 

 wave gaily above little Citizen 

 Bird, as under its protection he 

 feeds upon his human brothers' 

 bounty." 



The field-work section will 

 give employment to both boys and 

 men, two classes in the com- 

 munity that the ordinary method 

 of the Audubon societies often 

 fails to interest, through lack of 

 giving them physical labor to per- 

 form. A man, preferably a sports- 

 man either by nature or training, 

 should plan these feeding stations 

 according to his knowledge of 

 the haunts of the birds, set up 

 shelter of brush, of the hayrick 

 type, constructed with due regard 

 to protected ingress and egress — 

 that, by the way, must in no wise cause suspicion as being a trap — or else 

 stack corn-stalks on either side a snake or stone fence, and straightway 

 appoint his feeding-wardens who will take the supplies of buckwheat, 

 cracked corn, etc., to the station twice or thrice a week. By employing 

 a number of boys, the task need not lie heavily, and a small compensation 

 might be added as an incentive, if the district be a poor one; this, with 

 the legitimate chance for an outing, will be motive enough, while those 

 who really care for birds will most likely have valuable observations to report 

 concerning the working of the scheme. 



Besides this, there are a dozen ways of having food distributed to these 

 shelters — via the traveling peddlers, grocerymen, teamsters and rural mail- 





A BIRDS TEPEE MADE OF LIMA BEAN POLES 



WITH THE VINES STILL ATTACHED 



Photographed by F. M. C. at Englewood, N. J. 



