FOREWORD 



" Kind hearts need no compulsion to be kind." 



MACKAYE. 



FOR a long time it has been the writer's belief 

 that the final solution of the problem of wild 

 bird conservation lay, not in the enacting of more 

 or better laws, necessary as those laws are, but 

 in the creation of such an interest in, and love 

 for birds, that a very large majority of people 

 will have not only no desire to destroy them, 

 but will actually fight to prevent their de- 

 struction; and that the birds themselves will 

 become as safe as valuable private property. 

 This, it seems, would be a fundamental solution. 

 Most bird protection laws are in the nature of 

 artificial restraints upon people who desire to 

 kill. Restraints are often necessary but seldom 

 popular. People do not like to be told not to 

 do things which they very much desire to do; 

 consequently such laws are often hard to obtain 

 and harder to enforce. Now, if we could create 

 the interest and love referred to, we might ac- 



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