258 BIRD FRIENDS 



On one cold day when the snow was deep, the 

 author and Mr. Uehling watched the birds from 

 within the window from 6 a. m. to 5 p. m. The first 

 birds came at 6.42 and the last at 4.23. Eight 

 species of birds visited the counter, including the 

 chickadee, the junco, the white-breasted nuthatch, 

 the blue jay, the hermit thrush, the downy wood- 

 pecker, the English sparrow, and the brown creeper 

 (arranged in the order of the number of visits made). 

 A total number of two hundred and two visits were 

 made, or an average of twenty per hour. All the 

 birds at some time during the day, except the spar- 

 row and the creeper, came to the window shelf or the 

 moving counter. The downy and the creeper ate only 

 suet, and the junco and the sparrow only bread 

 crumbs. 



Difficulties. The same two difficulties confront us 

 here as in providing nesting-houses • — the cat and 

 the English sparrow. The birds may be easily 

 protected from cats by wrapping a piece of tin or 

 zinc around the tree below the food; by putting the 

 window shelf at a second-story window; or by sus- 

 pending the counter from a wire as explained on 

 page 257. 



English sparrows. The sparrow problem, how- 

 ever, is not so easily solved. In one way the diffi- 

 culty is not so acute as with the nesting-houses, 

 where two birds cannot occupy the same apartment; 

 for it is possible to furnish food both for the spar- 



