50 METHODS OF ATTRACTING BIRDS 



And this was true in some localities where unsuc- 

 cessful experiments had been tried, in previous 

 years, with other kinds of nesting-houses. These 

 houses are being made and sold in large quanti- 

 ties by a German manufacturer, and in one case 

 are being made and used on a large scale by Ger- 

 man state authorities. 



Maurice Thompson is authority for the state- 

 ment that all of our woodpeckers, except the 

 ivory-billed, construct their nests in the form 

 of a gourd or gradually widening pocket. This 

 is similar to the shape of the nests of European 

 woodpeckers as found by Baron von Berlepsch. 

 The houses constructed in this country have 

 usually been made with flat bottoms, and so have 

 been occupied by birds which construct a nest, 

 and have not been adapted to the use of wood- 

 peckers, which make no nest and have the bot- 

 tom of the cavity so formed that the eggs will be 

 kept together. So many birds use deserted wood- 

 peckers' holes, that it may be worth while to 

 construct our houses of this shape even when 

 they are intended for other birds than wood- 

 peckers. This shape of nesting^site is especially 

 adapted for the flickers, which usually incubate by 

 squatting on their eggs in an upright position. 

 Perhaps other woodpeckers may have the same 

 habit. One correspondent suggests that cement 



