WHAT BIRDS CAN DO 



Photo by Joseph H. Dodson 



A great-crested flycatcher house, with bluebird, suspended from a pear tree, from which 

 Mr. Dodson last year picked eight bushels of pears with not a worm hole in one, and that 

 notwithstanding the fact that the tree had never been sprayed. A flycatcher is certainly a 

 cheaper investment than a spraying-machine. 



"About houses and buildings, particularly those on our farms, the ordinary type of bird- 

 house rather than the hollow log is perhaps more appropriate. Bluebirds, tree-swallows, and 

 house-wrens take to them readily, and if you have a large house on a high pole you may 

 be lucky enough to attract a colony of martins" (see text, page 341). 



completely metamorphosed into a very- 

 attractive and interesting spot, replete 

 with bird life. 



If wild rice can be made to grow, 

 ducks will be sure to come in greater 

 numbers each year, while regular feeding 

 with corn at proper times may prove an 

 additional attraction to whole flocks of 

 ducks during the migration. Tame call- 

 ducks may be introduced, and if there are 

 near-by woods nest boxes for the attrac- 

 tion of the wood-ducks should be put up. 



One may even go into the raising of 

 ducks, though this is often both bother- 

 some and expensive, while the simple 

 flooding of a meadow and intelligent 

 planting of its shores is comparatively 

 little trouble. 



Mr. Herbert K. Job, State Ornitholo- 

 gist of Connecticut, is having some very 

 interesting experiences on a game pre- 

 serve in Connecticut, where low-lying 

 areas have been flooded and the wild 

 ducks attracted in increasing numbers 

 each year from miles around (see picture, 

 page 338). 



I know of one man in Canada who 

 several years ago fed a small flock of 

 wild geese that chanced to alight in a 

 pond close beside his house. The geese 

 appreciated the treatment so much that 

 they later returned with friends, and 

 have kept it up from year to year until 

 now I believe that he has had at one time 

 several hundred wild geese virtually in 

 his front yard, and in a very exposed 



337 



