Project Gutenberg's Bird Houses Boys Can Build, by Albert F. Siepert

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Title: Bird Houses Boys Can Build

Author: Albert F. Siepert

Release Date: July 7, 2008 [EBook #25990]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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BIRD HOUSES
BOYS CAN BUILD

BY

ALBERT F. SIEPERT, B.S.

Professor of Manual Arts, Bradley Polytechnic Institute
Editor, Shop Problems Series (on tracing paper)
Editor, Shop Notes and Problems Department of
MANUAL TRAINING MAGAZINE

[Illustration]

THE MANUAL ARTS PRESS
PEORIA, ILLINOIS

_Copyright 1916_
The Manual Arts Press

Fourth Edition, 1919

FOREWORD.

Years ago a country boy heard or read that if a simple box having a
hole of a certain size were set upon a post in March or early April it
would not be long before bluebirds would be around to see if the place
would do as a summer cottage. So he took an old paint keg such as
white lead is sold in, nailed a cover across the top, cut an opening
in the side and then placed it on a post ten or twelve feet high. Only
a day or two passed before a soft call-note was heard, a flash of
blue, and the songster had arrived. His mate came a few days later and
the paint keg with its tenants became the center of interest in my
life. A second brood was reared in midsummer and when the cool days of
September came a fine flock left for the South. Each year the house
was occupied until the post decayed and the paint keg fell down, but
in memory the sad call-note is still heard when spring comes, for it
is house hunting time once more, and the bluebirds are looking for the
home they had known.

That boys elsewhere may know the joy of the companionship of birds,
this little book is written. Birds will come and live near the houses
of men whenever food and water are to be had, safety from enemies is
given, and when homes are built for them to replace the shelters
nature offered before men came with their cultivated fields and
crowded cities. The following p