8 SENTIMENT OF ORNITHOLOGY. 



" Hence, in addition to the $90,000 actually expended by the State 

 in destroying 128,571 of its benefactors, it has incurred a loss to its 

 agricultural interests of at least $3,857,130, or a total loss of $3,947,130 

 in a year and a half, which is at the rate of 2,631,420 per annum. In 

 other words, the State has thrown away $2,105 for every dollar saved ! 

 And even this does not represent fairly the full loss, for the slaughter 

 of such a vast number of predaceous birds and mammals is almost 

 certain to be followed by a correspondingly enormous increase in the 

 numbers of mice and insects formerly held in check by them, and it 

 will take many years to restore the balance thus blindly destroyed 

 through ignorance of the economic relations of our common birds and 

 mammals." 



To their credit be it said, the legislators of Pennsylvania were not 

 slow to recognize the error which a lack of proper information had 

 caused them to make. A State ornithologist was appointed, and 

 through his efforts this ruinous and absurd law was repealed. 



In 1893 the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy of 

 the Department of Agriculture issued a report upon the food of the 

 Hawks and Owls of the United States based upon the examination of 

 the contents of 2,690 stomachs. It proves conclusively the value 

 of most of these misjudged birds to the agriculturist. It is need- 

 less to draw a comparison between legislation based upon information 

 derived from such reports and that based solely on ignorant preju- 

 dices. 



The Sentiment of Ornithology. — We may accept as true Prof. 

 Morse's estimate of the value of birds to the scientist ; we need not 

 question their importance in the economics of Nature, but we are still 

 far from recognizing the possibilities of their influence upon our lives. 

 An inherent love of birds is an undeniable psychological fact which 

 finds its most frequent expression in the general fondness for cage- 

 birds. If we can learn to regard the birds of the woods and fields 

 with all the affection we lavish on our poor captives in their gilded 

 homes, what an inexhaustible store of enjoyment is ours ! 



It is not alone the beauty, power of song, or intelligence of birds 

 which attract us, it is their human attributes. Man exhibits hardly 

 a trait which he will not find reflected in the life of a bird. Love, 

 hate ; courage, fear ; anger, pleasure ; vanity, modesty ; virtue, vice ; 

 constancy, fickleness ; generosity, selfishness ; wit, curiosity, memory, 

 reason — we may find them all exhibited in the lives of birds. Birds 

 have thus become symbolic of certain human characteristics, and the 

 more common species are so interwoven in our art and literature that 

 by name at least they are known to all of us. Shakespeare makes 

 over six hundred references to birds or bird-life. If we should rob 



