24 
HO USE & GARDEN 
THE BIRD CLUB MOVEMENT 
ERNEST HAROLD BAYNES 
What It Is, What It Means, 
and What It Does 
Utility and rustic attractiveness 
combined; one of the many types 
of nest-boxes. $2.50 
A sheltered feeding tray in win¬ 
ter and a nesting shelf for robins 
in spring. $1.25 
N OT long ago I was walking past a 
farmyard near Meriden, New Hamp¬ 
shire, and stopped for a minute to chat with 
the farmer, who was watering a horse at a 
trough. A lanky young countryman with a 
gun over his shoulder was sauntering 
towards us down the road, when a great 
hawk swept round the corner of the barn 
into full view. Up went the gun, but before 
it could be fired the farmer had dropped his 
halter rope and delivered a yell which ef¬ 
fected an instant stay of proceedings. 
“Don’t you shoot that hawk!” And the 
voice was menacing and eloquent of what might follow. 
“He’s after your chickens,” responded the lanky one in an 
injured tone. 
“No he ain't, either,” continued the farmer, warming to the 
defense of the bird. “That fellow’s a Marsh Hawk; you can 
tell him by the white patch on his back. He never touches my 
chickens. He’s after the mice; that’s what he’s after, and he 
gets ’em, too. I wouldn’t have that hawk shot for twenty-five 
dollars.” 
That farmer had learned something worth knowing; some¬ 
thing which all intelligent farmers will know before long. He 
had learned that hawks are not all alike in their feeding habits, 
and that if a few are destructive to poultry, many more are 
very useful as devourers of mice and other rodents. Further¬ 
more, he realized the wasteful folly of destroying useful hawks 
for the misdeeds of their marauding relatives. 
I was especially interested because I knew that the man was 
a member of the Meriden Bird Club, and that he had had his 
attention called to the value of the birds of prey for the first 
time at one of the monthly meetings of that club. And at other 
meetings he had learned the value of other birds. He knows 
that the presence of Swallows and Swifts and Flycatchers in 
the vicinity of his farm buildings means fewer flies and mos¬ 
quitoes, and consequently greater comfort for his family and 
for his live stock. He knows that a single 
pair of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks in his gar¬ 
den will keep down the potato beetles on an 
acre of potatoes, and that the Sparrows and 
Finches are helping him in his fight against 
the weeds which every year threaten to 
choke his crops. Perhaps he does not as 
yet appreciate to the full the moral and 
esthetic values of the birds about the place, 
but there are signs that he is beginning to 
appreciate them. Even now he and his wife 
are proud of the “Golden Robins,” as he 
calls the Baltimore Orioles, which come year 
after year to the elm tree in his dooryard, and proud of the 
achievements of their ten-year-old boy who attracts Chicka¬ 
dees to the window-sill and who shows rather unusual ability 
to imitate the notes of some of our commoner songsters. 
In short, the attitude of this farmer and his wife and their 
boy towards the birds is the right attitude, and, what is more 
important, it is indicative of the general attitude of the com¬ 
munity in which they live—an attitude brought about through 
the work of the local bird club. 
And therein lies one of the beauties of the bird club move¬ 
ment; its chief object is not the multiplication of laws, which 
at best afford only temporary relief for the birds, and which 
are liable to be repealed at any session of the legislature, but 
the creation of an attitude of mind so friendly to the birds 
that laws for their protection are scarcely necessary. 
Making Bird Friends 
The writer has long believed that the surest way to create 
this attitude of mind is to establish intimate relations between 
the people and the birds about them. And he has proved by 
repeated experiment that as surely as this is done, so surely 
will there result a mutual friendship which nothing is likely to 
break. It remains, then, only to learn the gentle art of attract¬ 
ing birds to the home grounds to accomplish the object of the 
T HERE are over 500,000 men and 
women, boys and girls in Amer¬ 
ica actively enrolled in organi¬ 
zations for the preservation of bird 
life. There ought to be thrice that 
number. This article tells what has 
been done and what can be done. It 
is by the man who put the movement 
on the map—Ernest Harold Baynes, 
the Birds’ Big Brother, who wrote 
“Wild Bird Guests,” and has organized 
over fifty per cent, of the bird clubs 
in the United States. If you want fur¬ 
ther information about these things, 
write The Editor, House & Garden, 
440 Fourth Avenue, New York. 
A Berlepsch box, the best imi¬ 
tation of a natural nesting cav¬ 
ity, and its Bluebird tenant. 
In this size it costs $1.25 
The Hairy Woodpecker, tail 
propped against the bark for 
support, enjoys the suet sup¬ 
ply. especially in winter 
A genuine “bird on the hand ” is an ideal that can be 
attained by anyone ivho adopts the right methods. This 
is a recent photograph of Mr. Baynes and one of his 
many “wild bird guests ” 
