Notes on Attracting Birds 177 
of them a Screech Owl was found nesting. Probably there would have been 
more of these birds about if seven or eight Screech and Long-eared Owls had 
not been trapped, in my absence, by mistaken zeal, last fall, 1909. Also the 
mice would not have been quite so much in evidence. This, however, will 
not happen again. 
The English Sparrows were shot during the early part of the winter; but, 
after one hundred and thirty of them had been killed, they became so shy that 
they were negotiated with poison. A mixture of wheat and hemp-seed was 
treated with strychnine and starch, according to directions given in United 
States Farmers’ Bulletin No. 383. The Sparrows were previously baited to 
two feed-troughs on a barn and shed roof. After they had been thoroughly 
FORCEPS FOR CLEANING NESTING-HOUSES 
accustomed to feed from these, the poison was placed in them. It is impossible 
to say how many were killed by this method, as they were found dead at some 
distance, and numbers were picked up by a neighbor’s cat. The result, how- 
ever, was highly satisfactory, as very few were left by the time the Bluebirds 
-atrived. 
For the present breeding-season, I have nothing of especial interest to 
report except the following: The size ‘C’ box (2$-inch opening), which had 
not been put out before, became immediately attractive to the Flickers. This 
size was placed in more or less isolated trees at heights of from twenty to thirty 
feet. A goodly number were occupied, one brood of Flickers being raised in an 
oak tree only a few yards from the terrace wall. 3 
As to the other boxes, I was disappointed in not finding a single nesting 
Chickadee or Downy Woodpecker. The only species found besides the Owls 
