A BIRD LOVER’S NOTES AND QUERIES. 
53 
A Bird Lover’s Notes and Queries. 
The Sea Pines, West Chop, 
Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. 
Dear “Nature Study”: Prompted by my success in lur¬ 
ing birds with suet and beef bones to my winter home, I tried 
to spread as tempting a diet for the summer song birds at my 
seaside house. Early in April I planted a triple row of sun. 
flowers fifty feet long in plain view of the veranda. Of these 
I selected those varieties which would ensure me a continuation 
of bloom, and which consequently offered early and late seed 
heads to the finches. In my trunks I brought ten pounds of 
hemp and sun-flower seeds to be used as food until those planted 
should ripen. My third lure was to turn the hose daily on to a 
certain part of the lawn, where the soil was richest — for you 
must know this island is very sandy and with few brooks and 
springs. This was for the benetit of the robins when on a worm 
hunt. The fourth thing I did was to establish a public bath 
where it could be seen from ^he veranda. This consisted of an 
ordinary soup plate, with pebbles enough in the bottom to keep 
the birds from slipping on the glazed surface. The sun-flower 
seeds I scattered sparingly at night down a path that leads by 
the soup plate to the huckleberry patch. This I did early in 
June, for I had heard the shy chewinks hopping around in the 
bushes under the pines, and wanted to make them come out of 
hiding. After having assured myself that the sun-flower seeds 
distributed at night had been eaten, I strewed them each day 
nearer and nearer the house with the effect that both male and 
female chewinks came to them more and more boldly, until at 
last they hopped up the steps, eating peacefully all the way, 
and following the stream of seeds until it ended in the fountain 
head, a cigar box full to the brim, which stood on the veranda. 
This box is only six or seven feet away from the front door and not 
more than three or four from where the family sits all day. The 
