BIRD BOXES.
AVISITOR lacking persistence might possibly be baffled in his attempt to view the Exhibition which is being held by the Selborne Society at 42 Bloomsbury Square. He might very well come to the conclusion that no such place as 42 Bloomsbury Square existed—as, indeed, does every cabman who tries to find it. Number 43 is there, and so is 41, but 42 appears to be in reality a different number in another build- ing; a fact which can only be ascertained by local inquiry. However, the persistent visitor will be rewarded. The Sal- borne Society is bolding at their Bloomsbury Square offices a very interesting little exhibition of artificial nests, boxes, trays, tables, and baths for wild birds, and any one who is attracted by the possibilities of inducing birds to feed and nest in gardens where at present they may have little opportunity of doing either may be advised to go to the Exhibition and learn what can be done. The Exhibition closes on January 31. There are two rooms in which are shown a number of different forms of nest-boxes, besides various appliances for feeding. The making of these nesting-boxes shows a considerable progress in form and design from the boxes which were lit used at the Brent Valley Bird Sanctuary, which, it may be remembered, is a wood of some nine- teen acres kept as a nesting and feeding place for birds by the Brent Valley and Richmond Branch of the Selborne Society. The old form of box, with which most people who have tried to attract birds probably made their beginning experiments, was practically any receptacle made of wood which was capable of having a hole cut in the side. The new type is something much more elaborate. There is, first, a kind of little ho-use made of stained deal: it can be made in oak at a charge per box of 2s. extra. This little house has a sloping roof built to run the rain off, an entrance or flight-hole which is made large or small to suit varimm sorts of tenants, a perch at the entrance in order to make going in and out an easier business, and a removable front, or side, or roof, which enables the landlord, BO to speak, to inspect his lodgers. The more confident tenants, particularly tits, raise no objection to inspection, and continue sitting on their eggs when the roof or side of their house is removed; they are also pleased for visitors to call on the young birds if it is not too near the time when they are about to fly. This method of inspection, too, has the advantage of enabling the landlord to give his houses a thorough autumn cleaning in preparation for the next season.
But there is an even more elaborate kind of lodging pro- vided for birds which nest in boles. This is not a box, but the section of a branch of a tree ; the trees mostly used for the purpose seem to be birch, oak, and Scottish pine. The inside of the branch or stem is hollowed out, leaving a cup-like hollow at the bottom, of the natural shape made in trunks and branches of trees by woodpeckers. The roof is made to takeoff and fits like a cap to the top, so that it can be removed without shaking the box, and yet is perfectly weather-tight. The natural bark is left on the box, and no perch is fixed by the flight-hole cut in the side, so that when the box is placed vertically in position it is a site for a neat exactly identical with the holes naturally made by birds in decaying wood. Woodpeckers, nuthatches, wrynecks, and the tilee—great tit, blue, colo, and marsh tits--are the lodgers for this sort of dwelling ; but, of course, robins and wrens will nest in the smaller boxes, and starlings are glad of any convenient hole if there is sufficient space inside. Ow]e, too, can be induced to nest in a very large-sized box, which you learn from a leaflet at the Exhibition will be specially made on applica- tion. And, of course, the hollow-branch box can bo adapted to various requirements and situations. It can be made with two sides cut flat at a right angle, so as to be fitted into a corner. It can be fastened to the top of a pole, and so placed in a garden which may be devoid of trees sufficiently big to carry a nest box. Then in the Exhibition there is a most ingenious oak gate-post, the top of which in hollow and is really a nesting box, with a eap which takes on and off. There is something eminently attractive in an apparent gate- post which contains apartments for a family of robins or blue
tits ; one is tempted to experiment further with other useful and necessary garden articles—pumps, for instance. The gate-post clearly would have to be firmly fixed in the ground and the gate would not be allowed to bang, or the shock would probably be too much for the bird's feelings. The branch nesting boxes, so as to be perfectly firm and secure, are fastened at the lop with hinged fixing plates, and it was suggested at the Exhibition that the top of the gate-post might require to be padlocked, if it was accessible to passers-by. A robin securely padlocked in a gate-post would be an attraction to any garden.
Other contrivances for nesting birds are much less elaborate. There is a plealiantly simple typo of nesting tray or basket which consists of a small platform with sides of split hazel, which in the Brent Valley Sanctuary is extraordinarily suc- cessful as a nesting site for thrushes and blackbirds. They seem to prefer these wooden platforms to any other situation, and when the writer last visited the sanctuary there was hardly a tray without a nest built on it. The keeper employed at the sanctuary makes these boxes in his spare time, and, like the other nesting-boxes at the Exhibitiou, the proceeds of their sale go to the upkeep of the sanctuary. Another type of nesting-box made from split hazel is a roofed tray, made to attract birds like robine and fly-catchers, which like to build under cover, but do not mind a bright light. It is a particular recommendation of these hazelwood trays that they are pretty and natural-looking, and do not in the least disfigure the trees to which they are nailed.
Of the other ingenious contrivances for enticing birds to particular spots and feeding them near houses one of the most elaborate is a large food table. It is made of wood with four legs, a sloping double roof made of framed glass, and two or more &ages, in the form of trays, covered with per- forated zinc, so as to let any water drain off, and reversible, so that they can be turned quickly without having to be cleaned. On these trays seed and other kinds of food can be scattered, and a raised edge to the tray prevents the wind from scattering the seed. Another well-considered contrivance is specially designed to allow the would-be bird feeder to provide food in his garden and keep cats at the same time. Cats can climb trees, and when securely established in the branches are not only difficult to persuade to descend, but cause the greatest fright and annoyance to every bird in the neighbour- hood. The inventor, therefore, outwits the cat at once by providing an iron arch, some seven and a half feet high with smooth rou ad iron posts, which a cat would not look at or even see if it happened to be looking that way, BO impossible would the posts be to climb. On the arch would be hang a row of cocoa-nuts, with a bird feeding on each. But perhaps the moat ingenious of the feeding contrivances is an inverted bottle which stands on a bracket some fifteen inches in height a the bottle is filled with seed, and just sufficient space is left between the month and the tray of the bracket to allow the seed to filter out as the feeding birds peek at it. The seed runs out on a tray. which is perforated for the rain to run away, and the birds sit on the rim of the tray. None of the seed can be wetted or wasted, and the birds come to the bottle at once, it is said, without mistrueting it as a trap.
In England these nesting and feeding contrivances are used merely for the pleasure of seeing birds making their home in a garden. In Germany they are used for the practical pur- poses of forestry. In the large areas under State afforesta- tion it is of the greatest importance to prevent any insect pest from obtaining a hold on the trees, and for some time past it has been recognized that the best means of preventing the ravages of insects is to encourage the presence of insect- eating birds. So the birds are protected and helped in every way, particularly ihi the winter when insect food is scarce. They are given food plants, food boxes, and drinking pools, and in summer are provided with nesting-boxes, about two to the acre, over thousands of acres of forest. A writer in the Field of June 3rd, 1911, states that in a range of forest of 2,500 acres which he went over there were 5,000 nesting-boxes, and from 80 to 90 per cenh of them were occupied. The German foresters do not allow perches to the nest-boxes, as these encourage sparrows. They take care to set the flight-holes of their boxes away from the prevailing wind, and most of them look north-east. Waste spots are planted with shrubs and trees cut back so as to afford cups and forks for nesting in ; the kinds chiefly planted are whitethorn, blackthorn,
dog-rose, blackberry, privet, elder, maple, and topped spruces. Winter feeding places are arranged near drinking pools, and the food provided consists of such seeds as hemp, poppy and millet, ants' eggs, meal-worms, sunflower-heads, and possibly a hung-up carcase—often that of a fox. Another arrangement for providing seed is a "food-bell," which is a reservoir holding about five pints of seed and running at the lower end into a funnel which just allows a small trickle of seed on a tray. This is hung ten or twelve feet up on a tree and fixed securely by a wire fastened from the tray to a branch or spike.
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