House and Garden 
I—The wren plunges; 2—The grosbeak came from an 
adjoining yard; 3—Rluejays darted in; 4—The catbird 
takes a bath; 5—Orioles came from a neighboring 
orchard. 
right in the middle of it; but I placed it in the lawn 
for the pleasure of watching the birds. Robins 
would almost invariably hop across the lawn to the 
bath, picking up half a dozen worms and beetles as 
they came; the kingbird would sit on a wire clothes 
line and dart out every few moments to capture an 
insect; the orioles would stop, either coming or going, 
in two plum trees to feast on caterpillars; the blue- 
jays would often perch on near-by posts, or even on 
the rim of the bowl, to watch for the movement of 
insects in the grass, and every few moments they 
would dart down to seize them; the flickers found 
a table spread with their favorite dainties in an ant 
hill a few rods distant; the familiar clicking notes 
of the grosbeak were heard for some time as they 
fed in the box-elders, before descending to drink or 
bathe. 
Birds are always in search of food. The necessary 
thing in securing their services for one’s garden is 
simply to place in or near the garden what will attract 
them to it. 1 hey will do the work as they come and 
go. And it is this coming and going process that is 
important, for it brings many birds to one’s help. 
Some, to attract birds, put up nests for them—for 
wrens, martins, and bluebirds. This means is effec¬ 
tive in attracting these particular birds; but it prob¬ 
ably does more to keep other birds away than to 
attract them. 1 his is especially noticeable of the 
bluebird. It is true that where any birds are heard 
and seen, other birds are apt to be attracted, as 
though to see what is going on. An extreme case of 
this attraction is seen when a snake, cat, squirrel, or 
jay assails some nest. All the birds of the neighbor¬ 
hood are gathered at the cry of the victims. But it is 
also true that among birds there is a general under¬ 
standing that wherever a bird builds its nest, a cer¬ 
tain area around that nest belongs to the owner. 
I have seen the kingbird, whose nest was in a solitary 
tree, attack every bird that approached. I have seen 
robins unceremoniously hustled out of trees where 
bluejays had their nests; and not long afterwards 
I have seen bluejays hustled out of trees where robins 
had their nest. To be sure, the bluejay is an egg- 
eater, and that fact would account for the attack 
upon him; but the robin never molests a nest, and the 
attack upon him is due to the fact that the region for 
some distance around a bird’s nest belongs to the 
birds that built it, and every other bird is regarded as 
an intruder. 
I once placed in my back yard, close beside a 
bird bath, a home for a pair of bluebirds. The 
result was that the bluebirds thought they owned 
the yard. Many a fracas did I see between them 
and other bluebirds that happened in. To the jay 
that came to the bath to drink, the male bluebird 
gave no peace, but kept him busy ducking his head 
to save it from his strokes. And a robin that, after 
bathing, rose in lumbering flight to the top of a high 
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