ns of a wire or cord, the resulting thick
mass of leaves and twigs offered so fine a place for concealing nests
that few birds could resist the temptation to use them.

Other means of rendering a cemetery alluring to nesting birds will
readily present themselves when an active interest is developed in the
subject. A little thought, a little care, and a little trouble, would
make it possible for many birds to dwell in a cemetery, and it must be
remembered that unless they can nest there, the chances are that no
great volume of bird music will fill the air.

[Illustration: A Bird Bath]

The young of most song birds are fed to a great extent on the soft
larvae of insects, of which there is usually an abundant supply
everywhere. Many mother birds, however, like to vary this animal diet
{235} with a little fruit juice, and the ripened pulp of the
blackberry, strawberry, or mulberry, will cheer the spirits of their
nestlings. Such fruits in most places are easily grown, and they make
a pleasant addition to the birds' menu. In a well-watered territory
{236} birds are always more numerous than in a dry region. You may
find a hundred of them along the stream in the valley to one on the
mountain-top. A cemetery undecorated with fountains, and through or
near which no stream flows, is too dry a place for the average bird to
risk the exigencies of rearing a family. A few simply constructed
fountains or drinking-pools will work wonders in the way of attracting
birds to a waterless territory.

In many graveyards considerable unoccupied space might well be planted
in buckwheat or some other small grain. If this is left uncut the
quantity of nourishing food thus produced will bring together many
kinds of grain-eating birds.

_Berries and Fruits for Birds._--Many native shrubs and bushes grow
berries that birds will come far to gather. Look over the following
list which Frederick H. Kennard, of Massachusetts, has recommended, and
see if you do not think many of them would be decorative additions to
the cemetery. Surely some of them are equal in beauty to many of {237}
the shrubs usually planted, and they have the added value of furnishing
birds with wholesome food. Here is a part of Mr. Kennard's list:
shad-bush, gray, silky, and red osier, cornel, dangleberry,
huckleberry, inkberry, black alder, bayberry, shining, smooth, and
staghorn sumachs, large-flowering currant, thimbleberry, blackberry,
elder, snowberry, dwarf b