In Berkshire fields . her trees about our birds, too, are our familiars, and nowadays,it is pleasant to record, more and more the objects ofour protection and care. Then there are birds of themeadows, birds of the swamp, birds of the pasture(the upland pastures, the cleared areas, the berry-patches), and birds of the deep woods. There are,too, birds of the river-banks—the kingfisher, forinstance. Can any one think of the kingfisher apartfrom his stream? Finally, there are certain birdsthe tramper, at any rate, associates peculiarly withthe roadside—the country roadside with its
In Berkshire fields . her trees about our birds, too, are our familiars, and nowadays,it is pleasant to record, more and more the objects ofour protection and care. Then there are birds of themeadows, birds of the swamp, birds of the pasture(the upland pastures, the cleared areas, the berry-patches), and birds of the deep woods. There are,too, birds of the river-banks—the kingfisher, forinstance. Can any one think of the kingfisher apartfrom his stream? Finally, there are certain birdsthe tramper, at any rate, associates peculiarly withthe roadside—the country roadside with its oldstone walls, its rail fences, its brier tangles and treehedges. Perhaps the last classification is an arbi-trary one, but let it stand. The old-fashionedroadside garden, before the dust of motors and theinvasion of tarvia and brush scythes, was a delect-able world of color and odor and bird and butterflylife. Its brilliant indigo birds, its gay goldfinches,its melodious song-sparrows, its protesting cat-birds,. Houses and barns attract the wrens and swallows 128 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS who chose it as their home, still know where suchgardens grow in the back country, and there theystill nest. Among the birds to look for as residents of thehouse, barn, or outbuildings are the house wren,the purple martin, the barn, chimney, and cliffswallows, the phcebe, the robin, and the chipping-sparrow. All of this group are probably familiarto the average person. The busy and domesticlittle wrens seldom build far from a dwelling. Theywill perch their nests almost anywhere—on a pro-tected beam, behind a blind, under an eave; butif you will provide nesting-boxes for them, placedon trees or trellis close to the house—any of thestandard boxes with the entrance hole the size of asilver quarter—they will select these houses inpreference. For two years a pair of wrens builton a beam on our back porch, but after we hadplaced a box for them on a grape-trellis some thirtyfeet away they dese
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
