Stránka:book 1913.djvu/209

General Scouting Indoors 187 See them there! Then they began irrigating. (Here he put a spoonful of water in the centre of the spines.) And then a change set in and kept on imtil they turned into the Lone Star State." As we watched, the water caused the toothpicks to straighten out until they made the pattern of a star as in "B." BIRD BOXES OR HOUSES A good hne of winter work is making bird boxes to have them ready for the spring birds. Two styles of bird houses are in vogue; one a miniature house on a pole, the other is an artificial hoUow Umb in a tree. First — the miniature cabin or house on a pole. This is very good for martins, swallows, etc., and popular with most birds, because it is safest from cats and squirrels. But most of us consider it far from ornamental. To make one, take any wooden box about six inches square put a wooden roof on it (a in Cut), then bore a hole in the middle of one end, making it one and one half inches wide; and on the bottom nail a piece of two-inch wood with an inch auger hole in it (b). Drive in a nail for a perch below the door and all is ready for a coat of soft, olive- green paint. After this is dry, the box is finished. When you set it in place, the end of the pole is shaved to fit tight into the auger hole in the bottom, and the pole then set up, or fastened to the end of the building. In the latter case a six or eight foot pole is long enough. In some neighbor- hoods it is necessary to put tin as a cat and rat guard, on o