556 
A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS 
yet not be too far from the father’s work, and many and many 
a family have had to move to inconvenient places because such 
a home could not be found near by. 
Strange as it may at first seem, our little fellow citizens, 
the birds, have this same trouble. 
In an open, half-wooded farming country there are plenty 
of nesting haunts, and running brooks and ponds for the birds 
who need water by their homestead. But presently perhaps 
a railway comes by, the land is bought up and the woods cut 
down for railway ties, the brush is cleared from old pastures 
and they are turned into house lots. Old orchards are done 
away with, and everything is “ cleaned up.” 
This is as it should be, and a sign of progress ; but where 
are the birds that nature has told to nest in tree hollows, like 
the Bluebird, Chickadee, the Tree Swallow, Downy and Hairy 
Woodpecker, and the jolly Yellowhammer, to find homes? 
You will often hear people say, “ It is too bad the Blue- 
birds are dying out ; ” but if somewhere about the place you 
will fasten a hollow log or a square bird box with a single 
round opening in it to a high fence post or to a pole set up on 
purpose, you will soon see that the Bluebirds have not died out, 
but that they have been discouraged in their househunting. 
It is a mistake to make bird houses too large, or to have 
many rooms in them, unless you are hoping to attract Purple 
Martins, who like to live in colonies. Birds like a whole build- 
ing to themselves quite as well as people, and they do not like 
people to come too close and peep in at their windows and 
doors either. 
Autumn and winter are the best seasons for making and 
placing bird boxes; it gives time for them to become “ weath- 
ered ” before nesting time, and birds are apt to be suspicious of 
anvthins: that looks too new and fine. 
It is also a kind act for those who live on farms to leave 
a few stacks of cornstalks or a sheaf of rye standing in a 
fence corner as a shelter for the game birds, who are often 
driven by cold to burrow in the snow for cover, and fre- 
quently, when the crust freezes above them, die of starvation. 
Doing this is wise as well as kind, for it helps to keep alive 
and increase these valuable food birds, and makes better sport 
for the farmers in the time when the law says they may go 
a-hunting. 
