. Department circular. Agriculture. 6 birds' enemies; also it may serve in winter as a night shelter or sleeping place for a woodpecker or a party of nuthatches or chickadees. We must allow the birds to be the judges of what they want, as they and not we are to be suited. Therefore in building a nesting box it is well to inquire first what kind of a home the bird naturally chooses. General Considerations. Many people write me anxiously asking of what size nesting boxes should be made and begging for exact dimensions; some are unhappy lest the entrance holes face the wrong way; others are anxio
. Department circular. Agriculture. 6 birds' enemies; also it may serve in winter as a night shelter or sleeping place for a woodpecker or a party of nuthatches or chickadees. We must allow the birds to be the judges of what they want, as they and not we are to be suited. Therefore in building a nesting box it is well to inquire first what kind of a home the bird naturally chooses. General Considerations. Many people write me anxiously asking of what size nesting boxes should be made and begging for exact dimensions; some are unhappy lest the entrance holes face the wrong way; others are anxious about ventilation; others feel sure that the smell of paint on the nesting boxes or bird houses will drive the birds away, while still others fear that they may get the box too high or too low; but all these things make very little difference. The situation and environment, and the size of the entrances, however, are important. I have known tree swallows to nest in a round box 3| inches in interior diameter, in a flowerpot even smaller at the bottom, and in a one-apartment bird house, nearly a foot square and about 18 inches high from floor to ridgepole (Fig. 1). This is one of the most popular houses with tree swal- FiG. house. l^^^'S. But why wastc enough lumber on one bird house to make three nesting boxes? I have tried facing the entrance hole to all points of the compass. The birds used them all.^ Painted or unpainted, weathered or unweathered, wood, bark, cement, tin, clay, pai)ier-mache and roofing felt, — all have been chosen in- discriminately by feathered house hunters. Boxes placed 6 feet from the ground and others set on poles on the roofs of tall city buildings have been taken. I have seen chickadees nesting in a hole in a birch stump 2 feet from the ground and in the hollow branch of an elm 65 feet high. One wood duck settled in a hollow apple tree 3 feet from the ground, and another 40 feet up in a hollow elm. Such ex- 1 I am now convinced, howeve
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