February, 1913 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



43 



A bird-house may become a distinct architectural feature of the landscape when carefully designed 



Making Friends With the Birds 



By Edgar Nesbitt 

 Photographs by Jessie Tarbox Beals and others 



OTHING is easier than to attract by kind- 

 ness and to retain by constancy the little 

 denizens of the air. They may be snubbed 

 or cruelly persecuted, their nests may be 

 robbed, or they may have to watch the 

 prowess of merciless animals who would 

 rob them of their young, but a little thoughtful sympathy 

 will win them, and while always somewhat shy, our birds 

 may become the most faithful of friends. While doubtless 

 they prefer the country, many of them seem to be fond of 

 city life, for the streets are never without the little feath- 

 ered citizens, and they nest in the most unlikely places in 

 the older and crowded parts of a city almost as readily as 

 in the parks, where they find a setting almost as rural as 

 that of the actual country. 



Perhaps the quickest and the surest way to obtain the 

 friendship of the birds is to show an interest in their welfare 

 to the extent of providing habitations for them. A wel- 

 come thus extended will meet with a ready response, and 

 the same bird family will return year after year for a long 

 time — or perhaps they may "sub-let" for the years when 

 their plans call them elsewhere. The homes which we offer 

 our little guests may be almost anything which affords a 

 shelter — the little visitors are not apt to complain, and 



seem pleased with the smallest effort for their comfort and 

 happiness. The shops are full of ready-built houses 

 adapted to the needs of the most fastidious of birds — 

 houses of birch bark, logs, or bamboo, or made of wood 

 suitably painted; but the houses which are most pleasing to 

 the birds are the simplest, for they are extremely shy, and 

 do not take readily to anything very new or extremely fine 

 or conspicuous. They really seem to prefer houses made 

 of old lumber, such as fence boards, or from small wooden 

 boxes, although the rustic bird houses which may be bought 

 in the shops are popular, probably because they seem suit- 

 able and suggest the joys of country living. Tin cans, if 

 sufficiently large, may be made into admirable bird houses; 

 but care must be taken to see that there are no rough or 

 sharp edges about the entrance to the house, and there 

 should be a few nail-holes in the lower side to allow for the 

 escape of any water that the rain may drive in. 



Boxes for birds such as wrens or chickadees should have 

 an inside measurement of twelve by four or five inches, and 

 the larger dimension should be that from the front toward 

 the back. The entrance might be circular and about an 

 inch and one eighth in diameter. If you are building for 

 the swallows or the blue birds, the same inner dimensions 

 will suffice, but the entrance should be a hole an inch and a 



