MUSEUM BULLETIN 



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EDITED FOR THE PUBLICATION COMMITTEE 



BY ARTHUR HOLL1CK, CURATOR-IN-CHIEF 



No. 69. Published Monthly at New Brighton, N. Y. APRIL, 1914 



THE NEXT MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION 



will be held in the assembly hall of the museum. 154 Stuyvesant Place, St. 

 George, on Saturday evening, April 18, 1914, at 8:15 o'clock. Mr. Raymond 

 Perry will deliver an address on "Illustration up to the minute," illustrated 

 on the blackboard and by lantern slides. 



ARTHUR HOLLICK, 



Secretary. 



The 1913-14 courses of lectures for school children at the museum 

 ended with two talks on birds by Mr. Cleaves, March 6th and 13th. The 

 subjects were : ' ' Some "Ways of Attracting Birds ' ' and ' ' Spring Birds on Staten 

 Island"; and the attendance was 53 and 96, respectively. 



Apropos of the Spring season and the return of the birds a special 

 exhibit has been installed in the Local Biology Room on the first floor illustrat- 

 ing several types of bird houses and feeding stations. The display is designed 

 to encourage visitors and members living in suitable localities to put out 

 nesting boxes, however simple in construction, in an effort to persuade as 

 many birds as possible to remain during the summer and nest on Staten 

 Island. 



One of the most interesting features of the exhibit are two examples 

 of the nest boxes originated by Baron Hans von Berlepseh and put to such 

 practical use on his estate at Seebach, Germany. These bird houses are 

 made of natural logs, cut into sections of proper length, and hollowed out so 

 as to resemble the home of the woodpecker. Of 2,000 boxes oyer 90 per cent, 

 were reported occupied at the end of the second year on the von Berlepsch 

 estate, and the trees on the grounds and for a quarter of a mile in all 

 directions were kept remarkably free from insects owing to the presence 

 of such unusual numbers of insectivorous birds. The German government was 

 so impressed that an order for about 40,000 of the nesting boxes was issued in 

 1913, these to be placed in the national forests. 



Three unique bird boxes and nesting devices have been loaned for the 

 exhibition by Messrs. Charles Benedict and Everett Burkman. One is 

 very appropriately called the " 'Silk Hat Hai-ry' Bird House" and is made 

 from an old opera hat ; the second is made from a discarded shoe ; while the 

 third is a hinged bluebird house, so constructed as to allow easy access to the 

 interior, both for the purpose of inspecting contents during the breeding period 

 and for the easy removal of old nests in the fall. Other examples of nest 

 boxes and some photos of feeding stations complete the exhibit. H.H.C. 



Accessions were received during March from Howard R. Bayne. 

 Wm. T. Davis, E. C. Delavan, Jr., Fred S. Ebertz, Francis McCallum, Ira K 

 Morris, Morton "W. Smith. 



Entered as 2d-class matter in the P.O. at New Brighton, N.T., under Act of Congress, July 16. 1904 



