Birds are the Gardeners’ Best Friends 
post, the bluebird plunged into and actually knocked 
to the ground. 
If the bath is put out early in the season the birds 
will discover it and build their nests in various places 
in the neighborhood convenient to its use. 
In connection with the bath it is of great impor¬ 
tance to erect two or three high posts, and between 
two of them at least to string a tight wire or rope. 
Simply by focusing my camera upon the top of a high 
post placed in the middle of my back yard, I have 
secured the photographs of half the birds that entered 
the yard during a season—robins, wrens, bluebirds, 
thrushes, jays, catbirds, flickers, orioles, grosbeaks, 
and kingbirds. 
These posts serve as perches from which the birds 
watch for insects moving on the ground, in the grass, 
or among the leaves of vegetables. The kingbird 
will one moment dart into the air to take a fly, and 
the next, descend to the ground to seize a beetle. The 
bluejay may be seen cocking his head now on one 
side now on the other, and every few moments drop¬ 
ping to the lawn to take an insect. Who has not seen 
a red-headed woodpecker perched on a post by the 
roadside, and wondered what he was doing there ? 
I one day held my watch on one for five minutes, and 
during that time he descended to the ground for 
insects five times, and took one in the air as do the 
flycatchers. He was simply using the post as a perch 
for observation. Such posts in our gardens give the 
birds twice the chance to see the injurious insects 
which they otherwise would have. 
If one thus attracts birds to his garden he will find 
that they soon learn to be on hand when any plowing, 
spading, hoeing raking, or weeding is going on; for 
it is when the soil is disturbed that worms and insects 
are brought to the surface; and in approaching near 
to the worker to secure them, the robins especially, 
become almost as tame and bold as chickens. 
Black-billed cuckoos, kingbirds, orioles are all 
very active in destroying beetles, grasshoppers, saw- 
flies, spiders, weevils, caterpillars, ants and click 
beetles, the larvae of the latter being among the 
most destructive insects known. The grosbeak is 
the particular enemy of the potato beetle, while 
the robin, the house wren, the bluebird and 
catbird are all shown to subsist mostly on ani¬ 
mal matter, the greater portion of which consists 
of insects. 
A careful examination of the stomachs of numbers 
of these birds has been made by the United States 
Department of Agriculture and the results of the 
investigations are contained in the “ Farmers’Bulle¬ 
tin” No. 54 on “Some Common Birds in their Rela¬ 
tion to Agriculture.” 
From the facts set forth therein, it is safe to say 
that seventy-five per cent of the food of the birds 
noted in the Bulletin consists of insects, most of 
which are harmful to our gardens. 
6—The wren considered it his private bath ; 7—Cat¬ 
birds ventured in; 8—Robins came hopping to the bath; 
9—The flicker shot down from his nest; 10—A catbird 
and young robin at the bath. 
ll 7 
