48 Birds Every Child Should Know 



alive. When all the states make and enforce 

 similar laws, there will be an end to the barbaric 

 slaughter of many birds for no more worthy- 

 end than the trimming of hats for thought- 

 less girls and women. Birds of bright plumage 

 have suffered most, of course, but the mocking- 

 birds' nests have been robbed for so many 

 generations to furnish caged fledglings for both 

 American and European bird dealers, that shot 

 guns could have done no work more deadly. 

 Where the people are too ignorant to understand 

 what mockingbirds are doing for them every day 

 in the year by eating insects in their gardens, 

 fields, parks, and public squares, they are shot 

 in great numbers for the sole offence of helping 

 themselves to a small fraction of the very fruit 

 they have helped to preserve. Even the birds 

 ought to have a "square deal" in free America: 

 don't you think so ? 



Although not afflicted with "the fatal gift of 

 beauty," at least not the gaudy kind, like the 

 cardinal's and scarlet tanager's, the mocking- 

 bird's wonderful voice has brought upon him 

 an equal quantity of troubles. Keenly intelli- 

 gent though he is, he does not know enough to 

 mope and refuse to sing in a cage, but whiles 

 away the tedious hours of his captivity by all 

 manner of amusing and delightful sounds. In- 

 deed it has been found that the household pet is 

 apt to be a better mocker than the wild bird — 



