NEIGHBORLY BIRDS 
Mysterious nature about you 
In forest and field and brook, 
- Her secrets are yours for the asking 
- When you learn to listen and look. 
_—WNina Moore 
Even dwellers in apartment houses and hotels some-_ 
times want to coax birds to them, and they place food and 
water, or put boxes, upon their window ledges to attract 
them, and wonder why they have no visitors. While in 
severe winters their efforts may tide over a few starving 
robins, or increase the tribe of worthless house sparrows, 
in general, it is only in parks, in suburbs of the cities, or in 
- homes that have vines, or hedges about them that wild birds 
ae will take hospitality from the town lodger. 
Sidon will birds accept the first invitation, for those 
now living are descendants of ancestors that escaped des- 
truction during long ages, when man was so busy in strug- 
gling for food or in fighting his enemies that he paid but 
little attention to the things he thought did not help to 
_ clothe, feed, or shelter him. He had no time, or even mind, 
to listen to bird song, or to enjoy the beautiful colors of their 
plumage unless they could be used as aids to capture these 
_ wild creatures for his own use. Now that men are growing | 
_ wiser, and so many people have learned to play a little, the 
| number is increasing who are getting.acquainted with the 
fact that more pleasure can be had through an acquaintance 
with some of the plants and animals, that they can attract _ 
around them, than in the ordinary air of amusement places 
or the jostling crowds of the city streets. 
It should be better known that birds are more helpful 
: than harmful to man; that they can. be coaxed about homes, 
where they pay their way by the destruction of myriads of 
