THE BIRD STUDY BOOK 



up for birds. Equally useful ones can be made in the 

 Manual Training Department of any school, or in 

 the basement or woodshed at home. If you do not 

 know how to begin, you should buy one bird box 

 and construct others similar for yourself. Men 

 sometimes make the mistake of thinking it is abso- 

 lutely necessary that such boxes should conform 

 strictly to certain set dimensions. Remember that 

 the cavities in trees and stumps, which birds natu- 

 rally use, show a wide variety in size, shape, and loca- 

 tion. A many-roomed, well-painted Martin house 

 makes a pleasing appearance in the landscape, but 

 may not be attractive to the Martins. As a boy 1 

 built up a colony of more than fifteen pairs of these 

 birds by the simple device of rudely partitioning a 

 couple of soap boxes. The entrances to the different 

 rooms were neither uniform in size nor in shape, 

 but were such as an untrained boy could cut out with 

 a hatchet. A dozen gourds, each with a large hole 

 in the side, completed the tenements for this well- 

 contented Martin community. 

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