While the greater part of the text is the result of knowledge which the writer has gleaned at first hand, yet the author has several times quoted from the text of the Farmers’ Bulletin No. 621, United States Department of Agriculture, and from a contribution by Edward Howe Forbush, in Bulletin No. 1, published by The National Association of Audubon Societies. Fig. [2], the photograph showing a blue bird entering a box, is by S. P. Brownell, East Barnet, Vt.

Leon H. Baxter.

St. Johnsbury, Vt. Feb. 2, 1920.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
Our Friends the Birds[11]
Birds That Adapt Themselves to Nesting Boxes[12]
The Bluebirds[13]
The Robin[14]
The Titmice[14]
The Wrens[15]
The Woodpecker[16]
Bird House Material[16]
Methods of Finishing Exteriors[18]
Bird Box Specifications[20]
Typical Bird House Specifications[21]
Methods of Conducting a Bird House Contest[23]
Bird House Day[26]
Bird Enemies[27]
General Directions for Starting Work on the Bird Boxes[28]
Winter Care of the Birds[35]
Plate 1—Blue Bird House[41]
Plate 2—Blue Bird House[42]
Plate 3—Blue Bird House[43]
Plate 4—Blue Bird House[44]
Plate 5—Blue Bird House[45]
Plate 6—Box for Robins[46]
Plate 7—Box for Robins[47]
Plate 8—Box for Wrens[48]
Plate 9—Double Wren House[49]
Plate 10—Downy Woodpecker House[50]
Plate 11—Box for Hairy Woodpeckers[51]
Plate 12—Flicker House[52]
Plate 13—Woodpecker House[53]
Plate 14—Nuthatch House[54]
Plate 15—Nuthatch House[55]
Plate 16—Box for Tree Swallow[56]
Plate 17—Titmouse House[57]
Plate 18—Chickadee House[58]
Plate 19—Houses from Common Objects[59]
Plate 19a—Suggested Designs for Boxes[60]
Plate 20—Feeding Devices[61]

Fig. 5. Exhibit of Birdhouses Made In the St. Johnsbury Schools in 1919.

OUR FRIENDS THE BIRDS

It has been positively proven that birds will return annually in greater numbers to localities where assistance, in the form of nesting boxes, has been rendered by those interested in bird welfare, than to those places where no such provision has been made.

A progressive study of our native birds by competent individuals, especially through the United States Department of Agriculture in its Farmers’ Bulletins, has shown very decisively that the return made by our feathered friends by ridding our gardens and orchards of destructive worms and insects, is many times as valuable as the small commission they collect by sampling a berry or two here and there.