The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1903-02-14

we have but to give them house room;
the furnishing they will do themselves.
If there are old trees withahollow
limbs, in the garden, of course our
tenants are as likely to occupy these as
any artificial homes We can offer them.
Nevertheless it is we'll to have a few
artificial ones about the place also; for
the number of suitable natural cavities
are apt to be limited and a bird lover
cannot have too many blue-birds about
him. 1t does not require carpenter to
| make blue-bird houses; any man,
woman or child can make them, If the
only tool in the house is
jaclz-knife. A small wooden box
| with a hole large enough to
admit the bird is all that is essential;
if this box be stained q quiet gray or
brown, so much the better. Short logs,
with the bark on, sawed in two length
wise, followed out with a gouge or
chisel and nailed together again, make
very satisfactory nesting boxes, for
| bluebirds, wrens or other birds which
usually build in small cavities. All
such houses should be fastened at least
six feet from the ground and should, in
SUITE way VI QluSI, pS CdIGluily
guarded lest cats destroy the inmates.
The English sparrow is often a power
| to be reckoned with but it is said that
| if the bird-houses are hung by means
| of staples, so that they swing a little in
| the wind, the sparroWs will not nest in
them, but leave them to be occupied by
| the bluebirds which do not seem to
mind the motion.
Perhaps, even before we see the
| first bluebird, may.
"Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin'
in tall trees.
And settlin' things in windy Con-
gresses,"
For the purple grackle or crow black
bird is always one Of the first arrivals.
Quite unlike the quiet modest little
bluebird, the grackle and his COM
panions come up from the South in
noisy mob, which first takes pos
session of some elm or other tall tree.
where they screech all together like 50
many rusty weather cocks swung by
| the wind. BY and by the flocks will
| break up and individuals will come and
walk about our lawns, displaying their
| handsome black plumage with it's
wonderful metallic reflections, and their
| strange yellow eyes, which somehow
! seem to connect them with the four
| footed creatures of the woods. Crack
! les delight in tall pine trees, in the tops
and on the upper branches of which
they often make their nests. A colony
| of these birds is very apt to take up its
| residence in any garden containing a
row or large clump Of suitable pines.
| They have bad regulations as destroy
| ers Of the eggs and young Of other
| birds, and the strongest point in the
| character of gracllle seems to be his
unwearying devotion to his family
Another of the very early migrants
whose voice no bird-lover can hear for
the first time without a thrill, is the
red-Winged blackbird, the earliest fea-
| thered minstrel Of the reedy swamps.
With his first note the air seems to
grow warmer and we throw off our
| over-coats as we run to welcome the
| little sOngster as he swings among the
silvery pussy willows or shakes the
! golden pollen from the alder catkins.
| The joy we get from seeing and
hearing these first arrivals, will not be
felt again for year. Other birds will
! follow and these may have brighter
plumage and more brilliant song; but
| they are not the same and the chord
| in our hearts which responds to the
voice of the bluebird, the grackle, the
| redWing and the robin would respond
to no other music, were it composed by
! Mozart, and played by an orchestra
| from Heaven.
Ernest Harold Baynes.