Alabama, ipi8. 79 



Some writers find hanging boxes or nesting limbs, hung in the 

 branches of trees by wires, proof against the English sparrow, which 

 is wary of any nesting site not absolutely stable. Others have not 

 always found this method successful. It is probable that as a rule 

 the sparrows would not trouble such domiciles. 



The older boys may obtain permission to make themselves, and 

 the younger ones and the girls may get their fathers or older 

 brothers to make for them, artificial chimneys to be placed on the 

 roof of barn or shed, or against the side, near the roof, to afford the 

 chimney swifts a nesting place. With the hollow trees have also 

 gone the big old-fashioned chimneys, and the modern ones with 

 small flues afford scant sites for the swifts. The artificial one 

 described may be a single flue of sufficient proportions, or it may 

 be divided into several flues, after the manner of the genuine chim- 

 neys. Like the chimney swifts, the barn and cliflF swallows have suf- 

 fered the loss of a large number of the nesting sites available to 

 them in the days of the early settlement of the country. Barns are 

 no longer made of rough lumber, with openings for the birds to 

 enter, and abundant resting place for their nests on the old-fashioned 

 rough and rounded rafters. If openings of good size are left in the 

 gable ends of the barn, well up under the roof, and horizontal bits 

 of boards are tacked to the rafters in the form of shelves on which 

 nests can find a resting place, the barn swallows may be attracted 

 to occupy the barn, while the eave or cliff swallow may be similarly 

 attracted by a narrow shelf or ledge nailed on the side of the barn a 

 few inches below the eaves. It is well worth while to bring back 

 these feathered neighbors, not alone for the pleasure of their com- 

 panionship, but for the sake of the flies, mosquitoes and other annoy- 

 ing insects they will destroy. — B. S. Bowdish. 



m^ 



