viii Foreword 



complish a double purpose; viz., first, a great 

 reduction in the number of people who desire 

 to destroy the birds for any purpose, and thus, 

 second, make it much easier to enforce existing 

 laws in the case of those who still persist in the 

 desire to destroy. In other words, every person 

 in whom we succeed in implanting this inter- 

 est and love would be a recruit for the army of 

 bird defenders directly from the ranks of either 

 the bird destroyers or the indifferent, who are 

 often quite as dangerous as the destroyers them- 

 selves. The result would be the strengthening 

 of the defenders and a corresponding weakening 

 of the destroyers, and the tendency would ever 

 be to facilitate the passage of such laws as might 

 still be necessary, and to make difficult the 

 successful defiance of them. 



Now comes the question as to how this interest 

 and the love which the interest begets, can 

 most readily be implanted in the heart of the 

 average man, woman, and child. The writer 

 believes that the answer to this question lies 

 in doing active work directly for the birds. 

 There are few laws more sacred than those of 

 hospitality. It is not possible for us to be 

 indifferent to the welfare of our invited guests. 

 The moment a person — be it man or bird — has 

 accepted our hospitality, has broken bread with 



