Chapter XVIII 

 BIRD PROTECTION 



"Think of your woods and orchards without birds! 



Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds 



Make up for the lost music, when your teams 



Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more 

 The feathered gleaners follow to your door? 



You call them thieves and pillagers; but know, 

 They are the winged wardens of your farms, 



Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, 

 And from your harvests keep a hundred harms." 



— The Birds of Killingworth, Longfellow. 



In the last quarter of a century a great change 

 of attitude toward birds has taken place among 

 the citizens of our country. Slowly, to be sure, 

 but, nevertheless, steadily interest in the preser- 

 vation and increase of bird life has been aroused 

 until today in city and country alike bird con- 

 servation is a very live topic. This is largely due 

 to the fact that it has been demonstrated even 

 to the satisfaction of the veriest doubter that the 

 protection of birds has an important economic 

 phase, entirely apart from the claim of the 

 nature lover, whose sole argument might be the 

 very good one of protecting the bird for its own 

 sake as a creature of surpassing beauty, of nota- 

 ble vocal ability and highly interesting habits, 

 which make strong appeal to the aesthetic side, 

 if no other. 



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