Bird - Lore 



A pair of Chickadees raised a brood in a type A' box on the side of a cedar 

 within thirty feet of my library window, and I have every reason to believe 

 that another pair occupied another type A' nest on the side of a hard pine, 

 in the woods south of the house; but, by the time I had examined it, an 

 officious red squirrel had furnished the box to suit himself, and so mixed up 



the original contents as to make re- 

 - '^^su* cognition impossible. The same thing 



happened with a box, type C, about 

 which I had seen a Great-crested Fly- 

 catcher; a pair of red squirrels got in 

 there also. 



A pair of Bluebirds occupied two 

 boxes of type B for their first and 

 second broods respectively, and a pair 

 of Golden-winged Woodpeckers raised 

 a brood in a type C, while another box 

 of this type was utilized at once for a 

 sleeping-apartment by a Screech Owl. 



In the spring of 1910, I imported 

 15 more nest-boxes, 5 each A, A"^, and , 

 B, making 35 in all, of which six were 

 in apple trees on the lawn, as an at- 

 traction for Tree Swallows and House 

 Wrens, as well as Bluebirds that 

 already nested there; while six others 

 were scattered through the East Wood 

 for the Woodpeckers and Nuthatches 

 that frequent it. 



In 1910, no additional birds bred 

 in the boxes on the lawn. The Blue- 

 birds were still there, but Tree Swal- 

 lows and House Wrens scorned my 

 repeated offers of hospitahty, and no 

 birds occupied the six nests placed in 

 the East Wood. 



I had hoped particularly to attract 

 a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers that spent 

 much of their time there, and had, for the last two years, built their nests 

 within a few feet of, though just the other side of the boundary wall; but, as 

 their entrance holes average between 36 and 39 mm. in diameter, perhaps they 

 could not avail themselves of the boxes I put up (type A), entrance to which 

 is only 32 mm. in diameter. 



In the West Wood, where the remaining twenty- three boxes were located, 



NESTING-BOX USED BY CHICKADEE 

 IN CEDAR JUST OUTSIDE AUTHOR'S 

 LIBRARY WINDOW. 



