54 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
Continued from Page 51. 
small staple in the front of the box to 
hold it shut. Around the edges of the 
lid are driven small brads or tacks about 
a half inch apart. Across the lid from 
side to side, both ways, are stretched 
cords. 1 save the pieces of string with 
which the parcels from the grocery are 
tied on a spool in a handy place in the 
kitchen. In this box I keep suet, trim¬ 
mings from the steak, and suet purchased 
from the meat shop. In winter-time I 
buy about two pounds of suet in ten 
days. 
My bird family is pretty large, and 
sometimes pretty hungry. The birds 
eat the suet between bars made by the 
crossed cords. Some of them, especially 
the woodpecker,picked out such a dainty 
bit at a time. The jays, however, (for 
all the birds of every sort are welcome to 
eat at my feast, even the crow and the 
despised English sparrow, which usually 
though contents itself with the food on 
the ground), are greedy feeders, and 
carry off good-sized pieces of the suet, 
if the cords become broken, and bury 
them in the leaves. Every evening, in 
the winter, just before dark, I put out 
their supplies for the following day, 
adding more during the day if needed. 
The most uncommon visitor at the suet 
box was in the early autumn two years 
ago. We were sitting quietly, in the first 
twilight, on the steps of our rear porch, 
when an object dropped suddenly on a 
hickory tree near us, then made another 
drop to the suet-box tree, and to our as¬ 
tonishment, alighted on the suet-box and 
began to eat. At first sight it seemed 
a bat on the tree above us, but a clearer 
view showed it too large, and we saw it 
was a flying squirrel. The next night 
at about the same time, and from the 
same direction, it came again, and got its 
supper. We did not see it afterwards. 
All that year the flying squirrels were 
very numerous in the empty wooden ex¬ 
hibit building on the Fair grounds ad¬ 
joining our grounds, making themselves] 
perfectly at home among the open beams! 
and rafters. Indeed so much had they 
the “freedom” of the place that the 
trusty old bachelor German caretakei 
complained in a good-natured way thal 
they ran over the roof oL* his little house 
iii the night, waking him from his sound 
sleep that he had to get up and ran 
on the side of the Avail to scare them off 
Mr. Charles G. D. Roberts has recently ii 
an article about the flying squirrel veH 
happily called these little aerenauts 
aeroplanes. 
In addition to the suet in the box, 
put all sorts of food on the ground, sav 
ing all the crumbs and pieces of bread 
cake, etc., and all kinds of left-o\ r ers foj 
this purpose. I put nuts for the squii 
rels; corn for the rabbits and birds 
grains, breakfast-foods, seeds, berrie: 
other fruits, anything and everythingj 
And I keep suet in the box, and foj 
and water on the ground all the sumrne 
We find all the birds that come to ou 
near neighborhood, winter or sumrne 
visit us. Such a concourse of ga; 
happy wild beings! And we have onl 
to look out of our windows and see thei 
Rebecca IT. Kauffman, 
Oregon, Illinois, j 
October, 1910. 
