36 THE AUDUBON BOLD EA iees 
great big box that was so large it would have held twenty families to 
a tiny little wren house made from a gourd. One was a submarine, all 
partitioned into cozy little berths, one a tin can all camouflaged with 
bark until it was quite beautiful. Even a log cabin syrup can with a 
pained sign ‘For Rent” was there. Surely the birds couldn’t refuse to 
stay here with all these inviting houses to let. 
The children came bright and early, and all the time before school 
was spent in going from room to room talking, examining, and discussing 
the prizes and bird houses. From their pictures you can see how inter- 
ested they were. Of the forty-seven houses built, six are feeding stations 
and thirty-five are actually occupied by birds. Of these, twenty-four 
are inhabited by wrens, eight by martins, two by sparrows and one by a 
bluebird family. 
A wren house was put up close to a window on the east side of the 
training school. It was the usual kind with slanting roof and little 
landing place below the entrance. A pair of wrens decided it would be 
just the thing for their home and a splendid location to bring up their 
family. They were busily at work all day building their nest and we 
could hear their happy chirping outside of the classroom window. Of 
course we were all delighted to have them there. A few days later we 
heard a clatter out in the bushes as if someone was dreadfully excited. 
On investigation we discovered a family of English sparrows had built 
their home close at hand between the spouting and the brick wall on 
the opposite side of the window. The wrens tried to continue building. 
But just as soon as the mother wren would fly to the roof of the house 
with a wisp of hay in her mouth, look about and then hop into the 
entrance, there would be Mr. Sparrow perched on the little landing shelf 
as much as to say, “I dare you to come out.”’ After a series of failures 
the wrens have finally given up the idea of building their home there 
and have chosen a nesting place under the eaves of the green house. 
The sparrows are still in their insecure gutter home and are busy 
feeding the babies that have come to live there. 
We have decided that in making our next wren home not to put a 
porch on, and to make the entrance about the size of a quarter. The 
wren doesn’t need the landing place and we only encourage the sparrow. 
I’ve been told that cats like to climb the poles of wren houses and it is 
easier for them to get their breakfast on the landing. 
The fifth and sixth grades are planning to make a map of the campus 
and sketch in all of the bird nests, keeping track of the kind of birds, 
when they came, and just where the nests are built, as well as how many 
broods of birds are hatched in a season. Just how successful we shall be 
remains to be seen. 
Hitrpa ANNA STEIN, 
Supervisor of Nature Study. 
