254 Bird - Lore 



"Then, too, the bird don't always work on the square, as naturally they 

 don't understand property rights and boundaries. They stay in the broken- 

 down orchard across the way, and feed on grubs and weed-seeds all the fall 

 and in early spring; but, when strawberries and cherries are ripe, my neighbor 

 lacking such fruit, they come right down here. 



"Come to facts; just you figure out how much insecticides my spoiled fruit 

 would buy, and you will soon see that I don't owe those birds anything for 

 their services. The mistake is, you bird folks are too hot-headed; you seem to 

 think that because a critter's a bird it's got no faults, just as some folks think 

 a policeman's always honest, and a minister's shed all his human nature." 



I stood still, feeling entirely crushed, and presently I said: "I'm sorry that 

 you feel as you do, because I was going to ask you to have one of our lectures, 

 'The Birds about Home,' at one of your Grange Meetings, and perhaps ask 

 your neighbors to put up some Bluebird houses, now that so many of the old 

 orchards where they nested have been cut down. But, of course, it's no use 

 wasting words, if you don't care for birds." 



"That's where you make the mistake," he said, laying a kindly, if heavy, 

 hand on my shoulder. "You just happened to take hold of the wrong end, as 

 far as I'm concerned. I do care for the poor Httle dickie birds; I set great store 

 by them. Why it wouldn't seem like spring, in spite of the fall rye showing 

 green and the swamp maple reddening, if the birds weren't here to sing sun-up 

 and sun-down. I couldn't sit still, there in that long shed, to milk eight cows, 

 and feel natural, without the Phoebe flying in and out overhead, or the Swal- 

 lows darting over the pond, yonder. 



"The Robins and Catbirds are darned pesky in some ways, but they do 

 make chore time seem shorter, and the Crow Blackbirds are surely good com- 

 pany, walking along before and behind when I'm taking long up-hill furrows. 

 Now, if you'd said, "I wish you'd lend a hand to help the dickie birds because 

 they're pretty and friendly, and sing better hymns than a church choir, I'd 

 have said 'Amen' right off. 



"I can spray and pick off bugs, so can anybody; but no government re- 

 ports, nor farmers' institutes, nor agricultural colleges, can tell how to make 

 up for a bird's pretty ways and friendliness. So, if I was at your trade, I'd 

 stick more to this end of it." 



The farmer was right. Let us, without being maudlin, lay a little more 

 stress on the uses of beauty and affection. A child should not value or gauge 

 his father chiefly by the amount of money he brings home, nor should he be 

 taught first to value a beautiful songster by its insect-eating capacity. Our 

 standards, as a whole, are becoming pitifully, if necessarily, intensely material. 

 Let us, therefore, dwell first upon the undeniable beauty and cheer of the birds 

 of the air, and less upon their economic value. M. O. W. 



