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Show BY B0B BREWSTER Outdoor Editor, Mercury Outboard p. Feeding the birds in wintertime winter-time is something like smoking smok-ing your first cigarette once started you just can't stop. But for different reasons. One who blasts away on col-fin col-fin nails does so either because be-cause it pleases him or because he is too weak-willed to quit and draw the freshness of clean air through his lungs. search for food the way they normally do and will die. Saw a real good idea the other day that might be of assistance in putting up a bird feeder. Take an empty milk carton and cut 2 by 2-inch openings in all four sides. Bend the flaps upward to form awnings which protect the feed from rain and snow. Then ram two U-inch dowels through the carton just be- neath the openings. They will stick out on each side and form a perch on which the birdies can sit while they are dining. Toss in suet or small grain or oatmeal and sit back and enjoy the company of the feathered set. BOAT HUNTING People who figure that hunting hunt-ing and outboarding are not compatible are not doin' they're just talkin'. Many slates still have limiting seasons going go-ing on cottontail rabbits and squirrels, and t h e y can be hunted i ,st pleasurably from a boat. But one who feeds the birds in the winter better not quit it's the surest way in the world to lay a death sentence on the little feathered ones. It can be a real comfort to have a dozen or so birds chirping chirp-ing away outside your window each morning as they line up at a birdland cafeteria, and besides it gives you that "Boy Scout feeling" to know you are aiding in their constant fight for survival. But once they have become dependent upon your offerings and learn that they will be fed if they show up at a certain time, you can be sure they will be there at all costs. Conversely, if you forget to put out the feed, or stop putting put-ting it out for any reason, many of them will not go . out to I A boy down in Missouri had as good an idea on this as j has come around in many a day. He hooked a 6-horsepmvor Mercury on the side of a canoe and put-puts up and down a tree-lined river as quietly as a baby breathes. When he sees a squirrel cavorting ca-vorting along a limb overhead over-head he holds the boat with the motor and pots awav with a 22 rifle. The same thing for i a bunnv sitting alonsrside the bank.- Claims it's a whole lot easier than hiking the woods, and he gets to combine two of his favorite sports hunting and outboarding. |