LVotes on Ohio Birds. 93 
NOTES ON OHIO BIRDS. 
By CHARLES DurRvy. 
In the spring of 1860, my father moved to Avondale, building a 
house on a five-acre meadow. Across one end of the place was a 
deep ravine, through which ran a brook. The place had on it but 
one tree and a few willow bushes. On my first visit to it 1 saw 
but one bird,. a ‘‘ Meadow Lark’ (Sturnella magna). During 
1860, ’61 and ’62 we planted the place thickly with trees and 
shrubbery of many kinds. We also made an embankment across 
one end of the ravine, retaining the water ina large pond. The 
trees made rapid growth, and in twenty years the place was like a 
forest, some of the poplars measuring twenty-two inches in diame- 
ter of trunk. As the environment changed and became more 
favorable, birds came in great numbers, until I have recorded the 
occurrence of one hundred and thirty-two species. We greatly 
enjoyed the presence of these birds, and gave them protection. 
Our martin-box attracted a swarm of martins, who nested in it 
every year. Boxes and tin cans placed in suitable places attracted 
wrens, bluebirds, and an occasional Great Crested Fly-catcher. The 
Carolina titmouse made its nest in a deserted wood-pecker’s hole in 
an old fence-rail, and a pair of these birds, as though loth to leave 
the old place, this year built a nest and reared their brood in a 
hole in a hollow iron hitching-post which is planted within a few 
inches of the public sidewalk, along which many people pass 
every day, and so skillfully did she manage her entrance and exit 
that no meddling boy discovered her nest. An old dead limb of 
an elm tree served as a nesting place for a pair of ‘‘ red-headed 
wood-peckers,’’ who made a round hole in it and reared their 
brood. The next year a pair of ‘“‘ flickers” enlarged the cavity 
and used it for the same purpose, after which screech owls used it 
for a secure retreat, I having enlarged the opening so I could 
introduce my hand. Out of this hole I secured many fine speci- 
mens of owls. Whenthe European sparrow came, it appropriated 
the hole. This caused me to break off the hmb. Our large ever- 
greens afforded aretreat for many species, the bronzed grakles plac- 
ing their nests in every tuft and crotch suitable for the purpose in 
