SPARROWS HAVE OUSTED THE TITMOUSE.
The following birds must be protected at nesting-time: The Great Titmouse, the Blue Titmouse, the Coal
A PLEASANT MEAL ON THE SEEDS OF THE SUNFLOWER: THORNS BELOW TO KEEP THE CAT AWAY.
Titmouse, the Marsh Titmouse, and Crested Titmouse, because all these birds are likely nesting-box dwellers. The method organised by Baron von Berlepsch, and used in Hungary by Minister Darányi, with slight alterations, is intended to bring the vanishing singing birds back again. By the use of different sized nest-boxes it is possible to collect different kinds of birds. I know by experience that by arranging the bushes in close, twisted branches we can get the useful and singing Whitethroats to build their nests.
The importance of a rational study of this question of the protection of birds, with particular regard to their economic significance in given districts, has been demonstrated in Southern Victoria in a remarkable manner, where great mistakes have been made by settlers who seem to have been desirous of encouraging our own British birds about their homesteads. To take steps which resulted in the nesting of a colony of Fieldfares in a district where they had so far been unknown to breed, as Baron von Berlepsch did, was most advantageous, since the Fieldfares drove the murderous Shrike from the field. Again, by fixing up artificial nesting-boxes, made according to this great naturalist’s pattern—on stakes placed in certain districts of North Germany, ninety per cent. of these became inhabited by Titmice, until that time strangers to the region, where, however, their services were most desirable.