92 Bird - Lore 



The boys are careful in their photographing not to harm or disturb the 

 birds; they aim to be very accurate in preparing lists, and they never collect 

 birds or eggs, but only nests after the birds have left them. The meetings 

 are held in the evening, twice a month, at the school. They have field days, 

 when they go out Saturday in small parties to find nests and record obser- 

 vations. They are always careful never to remain long in the vicinity of a 

 nest. While a teacher fosters the club, the management is entirely with the 

 boys. 



Here is the problem of nature study solved ; study and work are made 

 play; no time is lost from other essential studies; powers of observation are 

 developed ; healthful recreation is had ; there is practice in parliamentary 

 methods of conducting meetings; information is acquired which in the future 

 life of the students will benefit them in a thousand practical ways; and all 

 the time the direction of their diversion, recreation and surplus energy is 

 turned into safe and improving channels and away from the innumer- 

 able temptations that beset boys. The writer has yet to hear of the boy 

 who earnestly and conscientiously studied nature who became a bad man. 



The success of these two organizations is due to the way in which their 

 programs are made attractive. The same secret applies to man as well as 

 boy. Put an attractive program before the members, let them manage, sug- 

 gest, discuss, and, above all, observe and report their observations and leave 

 the success to them. They will take care of that part, and nature study can 

 be conducted not only without interfering with, but to the advantage of all 

 other practical studies — B. S. BowDiSH. 



THE VALUE OF BLACKBIRDS 



"Kalm states, in his 'Travels in America,' that in 1749, after a great 

 destruction among the Crows and Blackbirds for a legal reward of three 

 pence per dozen, the northern states experienced a complete loss of their 

 grass and grain crops. The colonists were obliged to import hay from 

 England to feed their cattle. The greatest losses from the ravages of the 

 Rocky Mountain locust were coincident with, or followed soon after, the 

 destruction by the people of countless thousands of Blackbirds, Prairie 

 Chickens, Quail, Upland Plover, Curlew, and other birds. This coinci- 

 dence seems significant, at least. A farmer from Wisconsin informed me 

 that, the Blackbirds in his vicinity having been killed ofif. the white grubs 

 increased in number and destroyed the grass roots, so that he lost four 

 hundred dollars in one year from this cause." — FoRBUSH, 'Useful Birds 

 and their Protection.' 



