404 BIRDS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



the civilized community that the process should go on. The 

 epicure may lose an indulgence, and his case will doubtless 

 excite all the commiseration which it deserves ; but it will be 

 public gain, without question, to have the field and forest offer 

 no bounty to idleness, tempting it away from the serious cares 

 of life, to engage in pleasures, which no one is the better, in 

 character, in habits, or in heart, for enjoying. 



It is very desirable, that the experiment of domestication, 

 which has been suggested once or twice in the preceding re- 

 marks, should be tried on a large scale ; and it might be well if 

 some inducement should be offered to tempt some competent 

 persons to engage in such an undertaking. It cannot be de- 

 spatched in a single season ; it would require time to determine 

 on what food, and under what circumstances, they would be 

 likely to thrive best ; and much more time would be necessary 

 to effect a permanent change in the habits of a wild and wan- 

 dering race, and to overcome that impulse, which, in the season 

 of migration, acts so powerfully upon them, that some impris- 

 oned birds with their wings clipped, have been known to break 

 from their enclosures, and to set out on foot, for the region 

 of Hudson's Bay. In many cases, no doubt, such attempts 

 would succeed without difficulty ; and in others, what could 

 not be done by a short experiment, might be accomplished 

 by successive and persevering trials ; valuable accessions might 

 thus be made to the number of our domestic birds ; many 

 might come into general use, which now only the sportsman 

 and the epicure can enjoy, and races of wild birds be preserved^ 

 which will otherwise, in spite of all our game laws, soon dis- 

 appear, and be lost from our forests and shores. 



Respectfully submitted, 



WILLIAM B. O. PEABODY. 



Springfield, Feb. llth, 1839. 



