SCIENCE 
IS 
KNOWLEDGE. 
KNOWLEDGE 
!S 
POWER. 
A PRACTICAL JOURNAL FOR AMATEURS, 
Copyright Secured. 
Vol. n. 
NEW YOEK, MAKCH, 1879. 
Ko. 3. 
Bird Homes. 
BY A. W. ROBERTS. 
LITE BIRDS, 
martens, wrens, 
and the Europ- 
ean sparrow, 
will all occupy 
houses built for 
them, seeming 
to prefer to be 
near our homes 
and to court our 
jirotection. 
When travel 
ing along our 
^ eastern coast 
line, from New York to Maine, I found 
the European sparrow everywhere, even 
at Grand Menan ; and I was much amused 
at the many crude and comical styles of 
bird houses in use. Milk cans, butter fir- 
kins, old straw hats and discarded bee- 
hives were utilized for this purpose, and 
in one case a farmer had scooped out 
several hook-necked squash and club 
gourds which he had fastened under the 
eaves of his barn, for some wrens, who 
had taken possession of them. 
I found the prevailing school of bird 
house architecture to be of this style (Fig. 
4)_very primitive and very ugly. And as 
if to add to their ugliness, they were often 
painted of either a dead white, ultramar- 
ine blue, bright green or yellow, and oc- 
casionally bright red, and even black. 
None of our native 
birds would be guilty 
of ever taking up quar- 
ters in a vermilion 
colored house, but 
those feathered tramps 
and loafers, the spar- 
rows, ever ready to 
crawl into any hole 
or place to secure a 
footing, in this in- 
stance seemed color 
blind or indifferent so 
long as they obtained 
a roof to shelter them. 
In painting bird 
houses, never use bright or glaring col- 
ors or gilding, as it is not only in bad 
taste, and not in harmony with nature, 
but to birds of modest and retiring hab- 
its is very displeasing. Imagine a pair 
of our plaintive-voiced blue birds dwell- 
ing in a bright yellow house! think of 
their rich blue against a vulgar yellow! 
Could any combination of colors be more 
inharmonious and displeasing t^ an edu- 
cated eye? 
Fig. 4. 
