220 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
tection. ‘Maybe it doesn’t do any harm, but what good 
can it do that can make up to me for not eating it?’ To 
such a man say this: The Mourning Dove is a consumer 
of evil weeds, and its presence in flocks will lessen his 
labour and give his hoe arma rest; that the crop of a dove, 
examined by the Department of Agriculture in Washing- 
ton, was found to hold 9200 seeds of noxious weeds! Not 
to have these weeds grow would give the farmer, or his boy, 
time for a half holiday, wherein to go clamming or berry 
picking ! 
“Now we have some little birds whose names are still 
on the list of food- or game-birds, and I should like to see 
them wiped from it forever, or, at least, until they are 
once more plentiful in their haunts. These are the two 
cousins of the Woodcock, — Sandpipers, the Spotted and 
the Least, and two Plovers, also water-loving birds, the 
Killdeer and the Upland Plover. 
“Most of you children, at some part of the season, go 
down to the shore of the bay yonder, perhaps it may be 
when your fathers gather seaweed in the spring and fall, 
in late summer for the snapper fishing, or all through the 
autumn and early winter for long-necked clams. Some 
of you, I know, like Tommy and Dave, have camped out 
there for several weeks. Have you not noticed the little 
prints of birds’ feet just above the edge of tide-water? 
Or have you not seen the little birds themselves, no big-: 
ger than Sparrows, with streaked, brown-gray backs and 
soft white feathers underneath, running to and fro, 
balancing when they feed, as if making a courtesy, all the 
while whispering softly among themselves? 
