The Slaughter of the Innocent. 123 



Too late, the farmers saw their error and repealed the cruel 

 law. As the dead come not back again to life, another 

 spring, by order of town council, birds were gathered from 

 all the country around, and, in a wagon, overarched with 

 evergreens, upon whose branches hung wicker cages, were 

 carefully conveyed to Killingworth. Their songs, when re- 

 leased, must have run in lines of burlesque and satire. 



Beyond doubt, our native wild birds are threatened with 

 extinction. Naturalists and poets, their special observers 

 and friends, all unite in saying so. And one poetess writes: 



" Though apple boufihs are white with bloom, 



And cowslips star the marshy mead, 

 No little lovers build their nests 



On leafy limb and swaying reed. 



" The woods are hushed, no martins break 



The silence drear of field and glen; 

 No whirl of wings in happy flight 



Is heard along the sedgy fen." 



In my own vicinity, eight years ago, quails, blue jays, 

 cedar birds, snow birds, chippies, larks, thrushes, woodpeck- 

 ers, bluebirds, robins, orioles, scarlet tanagers, wild canaries, 

 and even shy bobolinks, were all numerous. Most of these 

 kinds nested upon my father's farm. Few of them are now 

 seen about the dwelling or yard, and a wooded pasture, their 

 favorite home, is but thinly inhabited. We are reduced to 

 bold blackbirds and semi-domestic barn swallows, and prom- 

 ised English sparrows. The destruction of our feathered 

 friends has been so ruthless, it is estimated that if it stopped 

 now a century would hardly restore the birds to their num- 

 ber ten years ago. Surely a worse than Killing worth's mas- 

 sacre is here. 



Its causes are not hidden nor agents unknown. A yearly 

 settlement and cultivation of new lands, makes constant 

 encroachment upon their chosen haunts. Larks, plovers, 

 quails, and all birds nesting jon the ground, find the break- 

 ing-plow's furrow their writ of eviction, for our meadows, 

 which might answer, are so often changed in rotation of 

 crops, that the home-loving birds have no abiding place and 



