Page:Bird-lore Vol 08.djvu/213

 J&ote£ from Jftelti anti j5tuDp Scarcity of Bluebirds in Missouri Dear Sir: Unfortunately I have again to report a great scarcity of Bluebirds nearly throughout Missouri this summer. Cruel March weather killed them after their return from winter quarters. The winter itself was not unusually cold, but it brought us more snow than ordinarily. From February 18 to 26 we had fine warm weather, and this warm spell brought the majority of Bluebirds back to their breeding places in Missouri. On Feb- ruary 26 it snowed from sunrise to sunset, and when it ceased, thirteen inches of heavy snow covered the ground. On the following morning the temperature was down to twenty degrees, and from that day to the end of March winter weather continued, with ice and snow and very few mild days; in fact, Missouri had the worst March in its history. The average mean temperature of thirty- three degrees was ten degrees below the lowest in thirty years; the total snowfall was seventeen and one-half inches. Snow fell on eleven days, rain and snow fell on twenty - •our days, with a total precipitation of four and one-half inches. There were really only three cloudless days in the whole month, a most extraordinary condition for Missouri where the clear days by far outnumber the cloudy ones in all seasons. The scarcity of Bluebirds was apparent as soon as the weather had become warm in early April, and on my visits to seventeen counties in western Missouri, the smallness of the number of Bluebirds observed struck me with surprise. It was surmised that they had succumbed to the adversity of the weather after their arrival, but proof was lacking until reports came in, showing that they had starved and frozen to death in their retreats Mr. Julius T. Volkman found on April 29, within ten minutes' walk of his house in Webster Groves, a suburb of St. Louis, eight dead Bluebirds in one tree hole, six in another, and nine in a hollow tele- phone post. They were mostly females. There can now be but little doubt that the same fate befell the majority of Bluebirds in all parts of the state, and possibly also in adjoining parts of other states. — O. Wid- mann, St. Louis, Mo. Feeding Birds in Winter Under the subject of ' Feeding Birds in Winter ' come two other subjects of even greater interest to the bird lovers, namely, ' The Taming of Birds ' and ' The Chang- ing of Both their Habits and Food.' The winter of 1903-1904 was an ex- ceptionally hard winter for the birds; for this reason I thought it my duty to set a DOWNY WOODPECKER lunch-counter for the feathered tribe. I tacked suet to the trunk of a big black wal- nut tree that grew fifteen feet from my win- dow, and it was not long before the birds began to patronize it. They seemed to tell all the birds in the neighborhood of their happy discovery, for many birds appeared that I had never seen around the house before this time. Every day the Downy and Hairy Wood- peckers, Red- and White-breasted Nut- hatches, Chickadees, Brown Creepers, and Blue Jays came to eat the suet, while the Juncos and an occasional English Sparrow 70