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Outdoor Problems of the Householder: English

OUTDOOR PROBLEMS OF THE HOUSEHOLDER 273 The house wren is a particularly useful bird. To invite his company place suitable nesting boxes, or even gourds or tin cans or empty jars about the house and orchard for his reception. An opening about 1 inch in diameter will admit the wren and yet afford him protection by excluding the English sparrow. One pair of wrens annually rears from twelve to sixteen young. Hence each family consumes an enormous number of injurious insects.

The blue bird is another species not only harmless but highly beneficial. It does not eat fruit but destroys large numbers of injurious insects. Every householder can afford to provide suitable nesting boxes for his occupancy.

English Sparrows. - The English sparrow among birds, like the rat among animals, is cunning, destructive and filthy. It was introduced into America about sixty years ago.

It is now widely distributed through out the United States and Southern Canada. Its ability to live everywhere, upon all sorts of food and to fight its own way, together with its extraordinary fecundity, make it a dangerous rival of such native birds as blue birds, purple martins and the different kinds of swallows. It drives these away by destroying their eggs and usurping their nesting places. It also drives off other attractive species as the robin, wren, red-eyed vireo, cat bird and mocking bird. It injures and destroys all sorts of fruit, garden and farm crops, and also the buds and flowers of cultivated trees, shrubs and vines.

It defiles buildings and ornamental trees and shrubs with its excrement and bulky nests. It has no song, but is noisy and vituperative. Nowhere is it included among the birds protected by law.

To protect blue birds, martins and wrens from English sparrows, construct bird houses having a hinged top, bottom or side to admit of removing the nests and eggs of the sparrow as soon as the latter have been laid. A convenient method is to make a hinged bottom which will fall when unhooked. This allows the contents to drop to the ground. Take care to construct a tight nest box and cleat the hinged side so as to prevent warping. In common with other birds, the sparrow does not like drafty nesting places and will not occupy a box the inside of which is exposed to drafts.

To destroy sparrows or clear them from any neighborhood, drive them from their roosts at night by turning upon them a stream of water from a garden hose, or balls of fire from small Roman candles. Or destroy their nests at intervals of ten to twelve days throughout the breeding season. These can be readily torn down by means of a long pole having an iron hook at the tip. But take care to have this work done by competent persons. Otherwise the nests of useful native birds may be destroyed.

Or capture the sparrows by providing one-room bird houses and driving them thence into a net held over the opening by means of a long pole.

This may be done by tapping on the side of the box after they have gone to roost at night.

Or scatter grain over a long narrow area and shoot the sparrows at this feeding place. If they infest poultry yards, place the bait on a horizontal board so that they can be safely shot over the heads of the poultry. a Or trap the birds alive, for which purpose number of ingenious plans are recommended. One simple device is the use of an ordinary square wire sieve such as are commonly used for screening ashes. Or, preferably, construct large boxes not less than 4 feet square open upon one side and covered with wire on the other. Place a small sliding door near one corner. Adjust the trap supported by a stick 18 inches long with a chip between the top and the stick and carry it around a neighboring corner or to any convenient point of observation. Or an old door or similar device may be employed as a dead fall. It is a good plan to keep the trap set and baited for a few days until the sparrows have become accustomed to it. Meantime to avoid its being sprung prematurely, hold it firmly by a stake driven into the ground. This trap is very effective but has the disadvantage of requiring attendance. "Paper patterns for the two funnels can be made by first drawing the concentric circles, as shown in the illustrations, and then laying off the straight lines, beginning with the longest. The wavy outlines indicate that the pattern is to be cut half an inch outside of the straight lines. 19 25 26, 8 10 11 20 FLOOR 2 18 16 1ST FUNNEL 15 2ND Y FUNNEL FLOOR 23 22 13 21 12 24 Funnel trap. (Side raised to show interior.) (Ned Dearborn.) Or a more convenient device is the funnel trap shown in the illustration.

This is easy to construct and the cost of material is very slight. It weighs little and when painted green or gray is inconspicuous.

The following directions are given by the Department of Agriculture: "The essential parts of this trap are: (1) A half funnel leading into (2) an antechamber, which ends in (3) a complete funnel leading into (4) a final chamber. It is made of woven-wire poultry netting of 4-inch mesh and is reinforced around the open end and along the sides at the bottom by No. 8 or No. 10 wire.

This is used also around the aperture for the door and around the door itself. The angles between the first funnel and the walls of the antechamber are floored with netting. The final chamber is floored with the same material. The accompanying drawings will enable anybody handy with tools to construct one of these traps in a few hours. These plans are for a trap 3 feet long, a foot and a half wide, and a foot high. At ordinary retail prices the cost of material will be about 70 cents.