MISCELLANEOUS 63 
In wild and unsettled districts I have often found the 
dust baths of native sparrows in dry, sunny places on 
old unused lumber roads. 
Nearly all birds, excepting, I believe, the birds of 
prey, swallow pieces of gravel or grit. Aquatic birds, 
shore birds, and seed-eaters are evidently most in need 
of it. I have seen the house sparrow pick gravel from 
the ice and snow on city sidewalks, when the tempera- 
ture was about zero, and once on a warm August 
evening I observed a flock of about three hundred 
blackbirds picking up a dessert of gravel after they 
had returned from their field feeding grounds and just 
before they retired to roost in the rushes. Some gravel 
should, therefore, be placed near all feeding places. 
The egg shells of birds consist of lime which the 
birds take into their bodies with food or water. In 
the egg-laying season the body’s demand for lime is 
so great that domestic birds will eat bits of marble, 
limestone, crushed oyster and clam shells, and the 
shells of their own eggs. It is quite likely that wild 
birds also need an extra amount of lime in spring, and 
I would suggest that it be scattered in bits as large as 
ground coffee near their feeding places. Crushed 
burnt bones and crushed egg shells will probably 
answer the purpose very well, and can be prepared 
by everybody. 
See: Liebe. Futterplitze fiir Vogel im Winter. Theodore Hoff- 
mann, Gera, Germany. 
Borggreve. Die Vogelschutzfrage. Hugo Voigt, Leipsic, 
Germany. 
