WILLO W- WRENS. 87 



thought that their innocent lives had been saved 

 from a cruel death. 



I can but hope that no reader of this book 

 would ever dream of catching our songsters with 

 birdlime, but there is a form of cruelty of which 

 thousands of ladies are guilty, and against which 

 I, for one, shall never cease to protest until the 

 hateful fashion has entirely ceased. How often 

 I wish I could lead those of my own sex to think 

 of the terrible suffering they are causing to 

 millions of birds as sweet and innocent as my 

 little willow-wren. Can any one conceive my 

 having had her killed and stuffed, and then 

 placed as a trimming on my bonnet ! The 

 thought of the willow-wren's mother-love ought 

 to make such an idea abhorrent to any gentle- 

 minded woman. But cannot my sisters be 

 brought to reflect that every wing and bird's 

 body they wear on their headgear means 

 the cruel death of a creature of both use 

 and beauty that was enjoying its innocent 

 life, and doing us only good by carrying out its 

 appointed duties in God's creation ? I cannot 

 express the pain it gives me to see aigrettes, 



