20 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



bluebird boxes, and put up martin-houses. At pres- 

 ent this is chiefly done in the larger suburban towns 

 (like Greenwich, Connecticut, which has a splendid 

 organization that has done great service both to 

 the birds and to the community). There is need in 

 such places, of course, but the need is by no means 

 confined to the towns. Modern farm barns are 

 often closed to the beneficent barn-swallows, and 

 modern flues are less adapted than of old to the 

 chimney-swifts. New orchards have no rot holes, 

 and with the farmer trimming all the roadside 

 adjoining his fields, and the State Highway Com- 

 missioners cutting down all the wild gardens beyond 

 him, and the lumbermen buying and cutting down 

 all his woodland, the birds have a progressively 

 harder time everywhere. Besides, it is not far out 

 in the fields or the woods that we so much need 

 them — it is about our dwellings, our orchards, our 

 gardens, for their services, even if we do not appre- 

 ciate their companionship. 



And it is so easy and pleasant to aid the birds, for 

 nearly everything they need is also a desirable adorn- 

 ment for man! For the winter birds there should 

 always be some evergreen protection, and it is a 

 safe generalization that no country house is com- 

 plete without such protection also. For summer 

 nesting there should be proper trees, and boxes for 

 the birds which require holes, and also some thick 

 shrubbery, trimmed when young, if possible, to 

 grow into whorls to hold the nests, and thereafter 

 left undisturbed to attain a natural wildness and to 

 protect its center from invasion, by out-thrown 

 growths. Not only is such shrubbery needed for 



