in them (Fig. 62), the rotten wood can be cleaned out, a frame nailed around the opening, and a neat little door (Fig. 63) put on the frame.
The door should have a hole through it, with a perch or stick attached, and this will make an ideal bird-house.
An Available Supply of Moist Clay
will often induce the cliff-swallows to plant a colony in your neighborhood, and holes made in the gable ends of your stable will invite the social barn-swallow to build under the protecting roof.
Do not fail to keep fresh water, in shallow pans or earthenware dishes, on your lawn, for bird baths.
At my suggestion Samuel Jackson, my young brother-in-law, set out baths upon the lawn last summer, and the photograph [on the opposite page] is one which he took of a wild robin enjoying his free bath.
There is another
Little Native American
friend which the noisy sparrows are doing their best to drive away. This is the house-wren: as interesting and busy a little mite as ever protected a garden from noxious insects. If you make your wren-house door the size of a silver quarter of a dollar no robber sparrow can enter to despoil the nest.
Of our seven common species of swallows, four are availing themselves of the opportunity offered by the barns for nesting.