Stránka:book 1922.djvu/135

General Scouting Indoors 105 purple martins thus: "Cut off all the top branches from a sapling, near their cabins, leaving the prongs a foot or two in length, on each of which they hang a gourd, or calabash properly hollowed out for their con- venience." But the wild-wood box or hollow limb is more sightly and for some birds more attractive. There are several ways of using the natural limb. One is, take a seven or eight inch stick of chestnut about twenty inches long, split four slabs off it: (O) then saw off three inches of each end of the "core " and nail the whole thing together again (P and Q), omitting the middle part of the core. Another way is to split the log in half and scoop out the interior of each half (L and M). When nailed together again it makes a commodious chamber, about five inches wide and a foot or more deep. Another plan is: Take a five-inch limb of green chest- nut, ehn, or any other tough-barked tree. Cut a piece eighteen inches long, make a long bevel on one end (e). Now carefully split the bark on one side and peel it. Then saw the peeled wood into three pieces (f g h), leave out g and put the bark on again. Cut a hole in the bark on the longest side, at the place farthest from the beveled end (x in e), and your bird nest is finished. The beveled end is there to make it easily nailed up; when in place, it is as at I. The front — that is, the side where the door is — should always be the under one; and the door in each case should be near the top. But these methods presuppose a fine big stick of wood. 1 have more often found it convenient to work with scraps. Here is one easy way that I have long used: From a four or five inch roimd log saw off two sections each two inches thick, or failing a log, cut out two circles from a two-inch plank, for top and bottom parts (like f and h);