The Slaughter op the Innocent. 127 



ages of thin settlement, thick forests and denser ignorance, 

 better be relegated there. 



But the value of some birds is disputed. Blackbirds, how- 

 ever, have many friends; there seems a tie on blue jays and 

 bobolinks. English sparrows, with cow buntings and 

 shirks, are respectively accused of assault, theft, and mur- 

 der, with relation to swallows, pewees, wrens, chippies, and 

 other peaceable, industrious tribes. Such miscreants might 

 be killed, and ' the survival of the fittest ' thus expedited. 

 It is respectfully suggested that ornithologists, with due 

 diligence, hasten to settle every point decisively, as the 

 U. S. entomologist has done by giving his public verdict 

 against English sparrows, which, therefore, may go on bon- 

 nets, or anywhere away from our gardens and better birds. 

 On small fruit growers, too, rests the heaviest portion of 

 bird support, from their produce is taken the largest toil. 

 But, after thorough investigation, it is decided that even 

 robins and cedar birds, by their destruction of insects, more 

 than pa}' for what fruit they eat. Necessity, already the 

 mother of a mighty family, will surely produce some inven- 

 tion to preserve ripening fruit from birds, at this one time 

 when their company is undesirable. Nettings have been 

 successfully used. An acquaintance hung a bell among his 

 cherry trees, an occasional ringing of which, substantially 

 saved his crop. 



After leaving economic grounds, with their far reaching 

 scope, still higher points of view present themselves. Our 

 summer joys, our aesthetic development, our poetry, largely 

 depend on bird life. Has ever instrument of man equaled 

 sweet music of lark, thrush and mocking bird? If the song- 

 sters were all annihilated, and their free concerts forever 

 done, would the bellowing of hungry herds and hurdy- 

 gurdies of locust and grasshopper compensate? How much 

 the eye would lose that delights in grace of motion and 

 figure and in delicacy and vividness of color! AVhat a blank 

 in art and literature! The dead birds used for millinery 

 purposes are lusterless or colored, minus legs, and other- 

 wise mutilated, with cheap, staring eyes and unnatural, 

 sprawling positions, surely as poor and unacceptable a 



