Editorial 



175 



iStrti itore 



A Bi-monthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE Al'DUHON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Contributing Editor, MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 



Published by D. APPLETON & CO. 



Vol. XIV Published June 1. 1912 No. 3 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES 



COPTRIGHl'BD, 1912, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Bird-Lore's Motto: 

 A Bird in the Bush Is Worth Two in the Band 



The bill to protect migratory game 

 and insectivorous birds (No. 6497), which 

 was introduced into the United States 

 Senate by Senator JNIcLean, on April 24, 

 was reported on favorabh' by the Com- 

 mittee on Forest Reservations and Pro- 

 tection of Game, two days later. Game 

 commissioners and other officials rep- 

 resenting forty-three states appeared 

 before the Committee, and its report 

 states that "their testimony based upon 

 years of experience and practical obser- 

 vation, was conclusive to the fact that 

 state control of migratory birds, must, from 

 the very nature of the surrounding temp- 

 tations and conditions, end in failure." 



Under the provisions of the bill in 

 question, the Unites States Department 

 of Agriculture would decide at what 

 season migratory game birds could be 

 properl}' hunted. That is, the often 

 widely varying laws now existing would 

 give way to one law based, not on selfish 

 or local considerations, but with a full 

 understanding of all the facts involved, 

 and with an eye to the rights of the public 

 at large rather than to the short-sighted 

 interests of the few. Everyone desirous 

 of due protection for our migratory birds 

 will realize how incalculably the cause of 

 bird conservation would be advanced by 

 the passage of this measure, and it is hoped 

 that it will become a law. 



This measure, we should add, embodies, 

 in effect, the provisions of the original 

 Shiras bill. 



In addition to the usual articles ac- 

 companying the colored plates appearing 

 in this issue of Hird-Lore, we print also 

 studies of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak 

 and Ruby-throated Hummingbird, which 

 could have been made only through that 

 close, intimate, personal association which 

 we establish with an\- creature which 

 depends upon us for its existence. 



Whether the lives of the 'Little Hum- 

 mer' and 'Ezekiel' were prolonged or 

 shortened by human care, or whether even 

 in sympathetic captivity, they missed that 

 freedom which was their rightful heritage, 

 we may not know; but it is significant 

 that each recorder of the history of these 

 short lives expresses, independently, her 

 belief that they were not lived in vain. 



Among current items of popular news- 

 paper natural history designed to rejoice 

 the discriminating, is a somewhat preten- 

 tious article in a New York evening paper, 

 which prides itself on accuracy of state- 

 ment, in which a fluent if not wise reporter 

 writing on John Burroughs' seventy- 

 fifth birthday, tells us how greatly Mr. 

 Burroughs' has missed hearing the song 

 of the wake-robin this spring! No one, 

 we may add, to whom we have related 

 this delightful observation, has enjoyed 

 it more than Mr. Burroughs. 



We should also share with Bird-Lore's 

 readers our pleasure in an advertisement 

 which appears in a late issue of a millinery 

 trade journal, offering for sale, in addition 

 to "gorgeous and dazzling Paradise, 

 Goura, Pigeon and Numidie," the "ex- 

 ceedingly rare and rakish quills of the 

 Great Auk." If this be a joke, it appears 

 to be on the advertiser, since the Great 

 Auk, as a member of the family Alcidae, 

 is protected by the laws of the state in 

 which its "quills" are offered for sale. 



The next issue of Bird-Lore will con- 

 tain an important and valuable article by 

 Mr. Frederic H. Kennard on planting for 

 birds, with a practically complete list of 

 the shrubs and trees of temperate eastern 

 North America, which bear fruit on which 

 birds mav feed. 



