LET US ALL PROTECT THE EGGS OF THE BIRDS. 



-r-^ 1 "^ 



LjUZABETH NUNEMACHER, 



p^n in Our Animal Friends, writes 



L thus of her observation 



^ ' ^ of birds. Would that 



her suggestions for their protection 



might be heeded. 



" Said that artist in literature, 

 Thomas Wentworth Higginson : ' I 

 think that, if required, on pain of 

 death to name instantly the most per- 

 fect thing in the universe, I would 

 risk my fate on a bird's egg ; . . 

 it is as if a pearl opened and an angel 

 sang.' But far from his beautiful 

 thought was the empty shell, the mere 

 shell of the collector. How can he 

 be a bird lover who, after rifling some 

 carefully tended nest, pierces the two 

 ends of one of these exquisite crusts of 

 winged melody, and murderously 

 blows one more atom of wings and song 

 into nothingness? The inanimate 

 shell, however lovely in color, what is 

 it? It is not an egg ; an egg compre- 

 hends the contents, the life within. 

 Aside from the worthlessness of such a 

 possession, each egg purloined means 

 we know not what depth of grief to 

 the parent, and a lost bird life; a 

 vacuum where song should be. 



People who love birds and the study 

 of them prefer half an hour's personal 

 experience with a single bird to a 

 whole cabinet of " specimens." Yet a 

 scientist recently confessed that he had 

 slain something like four hundred and 

 seventy-five Redstarts, thus extermin- 

 ating the entire species from a consid- 

 able range of country, to verify the 

 fact of a slight variation in color. One 

 would infinitely prefer to see one Red- 

 start in the joy of life to all that scien- 

 tific lore could impart regarding the 

 entire family of Redstarts by such 

 wholesale butchery, which nothing 

 can excuse. 



We hear complaints of the scarcity 

 of Bluebirds from year to year. I have 

 watched, at intervals since early April, 

 the nest of a single pair of Bluebirds 

 in an old apple tree. On April 29th 

 there were four young birds in the 

 nest. On May 4th they had flown ; 

 an addition was made to the dwelling, 

 and one egg of a second brood was 

 deposited. On May 3ist the nest 

 again held four young Bluebirds. June 

 1 5th saw this second quartette leave 

 the apple tree for the outer world, and 

 thinking surely that the little mother 

 had done, I appropriated the nest ; but 

 on June 25th I found a second nest 

 built, and one white egg, promising a 

 third brood. From the four laid this 

 time, either a collector or a Bluejay 

 deducted one, and on July I4th the 

 rest were just out of the shell. This 

 instance of the industry of one pair of 

 Bluebirds proves that their scarcity is 

 no fault of theirs. I may add that the 

 gentle mother suffered my frequent 

 visits and my meddling with her nur- 

 sery affairs without any show of anger 

 or excitement, uttering only soft mur- 

 murs, which indicated a certain 

 anxiety. May not the eleven young 

 Bluebirds mean a hundred next season, 

 and is not the possessor of the missing 

 egg guilty of a dozen small lives ?" 



We have observed that the enthusi- 

 iasm of boys for collecting eggs is 

 frequently inspired by licensed "col- 

 lectors," who are known in a com- 

 munity to possess many rare and 

 valuable specimens. Too many nests 

 are despoiled for so-called scientific 

 purposes, and a limit should be set to 

 the number of eggs that may be taken 

 by any one for either private or public 

 institutions. Let us influence the boys 

 to "love the wood-rose, and leave it 

 on its stalk." 



154 



