9 
tenants. With a few simple tools and a box or two 
which any grocer will give you, a bird-house may be 
made cf almost any size or shape desired. Should 
you Avisk it highly ornamental, nothing is better than 
Bobolink. Dolichronyx oryzivorus. 
to cover is with rustic-work, which may be done with 
the aid of a wild grape-vine cut in pieces of the right 
length and nailed on. Such a bird-house costs little 
or nothing save the time required to make it; and 
this slight expense will be amply repaid by the satis¬ 
faction of doing a good deed. 
There are many simple contrivances which may be 
prepared and put up in five minutes, and will serve 
the birds as well as any thing else. At the opening 
of the present season Ave put up four tin cans, such 
as are used for conning tomatoes, having first filed a 
small hole in the lorver end to prevent the collection 
of Avater. Three of the four were immediately occu¬ 
pied by bluebirds. One pair laid five eggs, four of 
which hatched, and the young grew to maturity. The 
other tAvo pairs each had tAvo broods, tour eggs to 
each brood, and all hatched ; but three of the young 
died before growing up. Seventeen young bluebirds 
and their parents, six in number, twenty-three insect¬ 
eating birds, Avere thus induced to make their home 
in our orchard, the parent birds for about five months, 
and the young, say about three months. Certainly, 
at a very low estimate, each bird would average 
twenty insects a day; for the food of these birds con¬ 
sists entirely of insects. At this rate the old birds 
would have destroyed during their stay here, eight¬ 
een thousand insects, and the young thirty thousand 
six hundred, which gives a total of forty-eight thou¬ 
sand six hundred insects destroyed from our OAvn and 
our neighbors’ trees; and it did not take us half an 
hour to prepare and put up these simple accommoda¬ 
tions. Are not these facts eloquent ? Then how in¬ 
teresting to watch 'lie housekeeping arrangements of 
these beautiful little neighbors; to hear their welcome 
song when winter seemed still with us; to hear them 
debate the situation, and finally decide in favor of our 
apple-tree ; to see them carrying up grasses and cot¬ 
ton and feathers, and weaving thorn together into a 
bed of down for the protection of their early-laid 
eggs ; to watch their love-making, and all their gen¬ 
tle, affectionate Avays towards each other; their jeal¬ 
ousy of intruders, and their sobcitous care ot their 
Upper fig. Snow-bird. Jun.co hyemnlis. Lower fig. 
Song-sparrow. Melospiza meloclia. 
eggs during the period of incubation ; their final joy 
when the young break the shells, and are born to the. 
light; and their untiring devotion in obtaining choice 
bits of insect-food for the nourishment of them off¬ 
spring. Truly here is beauty at our door-yard, and 
poetry has taken up her abode in our apple-tree. 
Purple martins and other members of the swalloAv 
tribe will readily occupy boxes put up for their use. 
Wrens, too, are interesting friends, and are easily in¬ 
duced to settle Avitlr us. We knoAv of a case Avhere 
a pair of bluebirds found a happy home in an old 
beaver hat which had bloAvn up and lodged in an 
apple-tree. A good bird-house may be made of a 
medium-sized flower-pot, Avith the hole somewhat en¬ 
larged, and the top covered with a board. Will not 
every one Avho has a dozen rods of land make a bird- 
house of some kind, and thus help restore the proper 
proportions of the feathered and insect races ? 
