184 
and drill a hole through it for the water 
pipe, cost forty dollars. It is a beauti- 
ful object, very suitable for its purpose 
and will last forever. It was presented 
to the Club by a Boston lady who de- 
sired to establish a bird fountain in 
memory of her friend, Dr. Edward 
Everett Hale, himself a lover of birds. 
I often think how much more appro- 
priate as a memorial to a real man or 
woman is a beautiful thing like this, 
made by Nature, carved by her mighty 
forces, and dedicated to the use and 
enjoyment of the loveliest of her children, 
than is a shining, ugly and utterly useless 
polished shaft, whose chief recommen- 
dation is that it costs from a hundred 
to a thousand times as much. 
The lovely bronze fountain executed 
by Mrs. Louis Saint Gaudens, is another 
of the charming features of the Bird 
Sanctuary at Meriden, and makes one 
realize that with the sculptor as an 
assistant there is no end to the artistic 
bird baths which may be designed. 
This particular bath was made in com- 
memoration of the first presentation of 
Percy MacKaye’s Bird Masque, Sanc- 
tuary, and was presented to the Meri- 
den Bird Club by a New York lady who 
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
witnessed the play. It will be seen by 
the shallowness of the basin at the top 
that my remarks about the depth of the 
water apply just as much to a formal 
work of art as to a granite boulder or an 
earthenware saucer. The rule about 
surface also applies, and the sculptoress 
purposely left the surface of the inside 
of the basin slightly rough that the feet 
of the little bathers might not. slip. 
Below the shallow bowl and in bas-relief 
may be seen in procession the principal 
characters who took part in the masque. 
Below these are interesting inscriptions, 
some of them historical, others consist- 
ing of quotations from the masque itself. 
Of these the one that sends the reader 
away filled with determination to do 
something for the cause of bird conserva- 
tion is the compact proposed by the poet 
to the converted plume-hunter and the 
naturalist : — 
A compact, then, that when we go 
Forth from these gracious trees 
Into the world, we go as witnesses 
Before the men who make our country’s laws, 
And by our witness show 
In burning words 
The meaning of these sylvan mysteries: 
Freedom and sanctuary for the birds! 
