No. 4.] DECREASE OF BIRDS. 517 



Educational Work. 



We must awaken an enlightened, all-pervading public 

 sentiment in favor of bird protection ; then there will be no 

 difficulty in enacting legislation and taking measures which 

 will prevent the extirpation of our native species of birds. 

 Until this is done, all laws for the protection of birds will 

 be more or less inoperative ; no law will be generally re- 

 spected or can be fully enforced. The citizen must under- 

 stand that the bird is the property of the State, and must 

 take a lively interest in its preservation, guarding its exist- 

 ence as he would that of his own domesticated animals. 

 He should also have an abiding interest in its life, its propa- 

 gation, its food and its enemies. Such an interest must be 

 awakened first in the school children, for every sane, nor- 

 mal child has the instincts of a naturalist. Children should 

 be taught not to skin birds or collect their eggs, but to 

 build bird-houses, furnish materials for building nests, feed 

 birds-, and attract them about the home. They should be 

 taught the usefulness of birds as destroyers of injurious in- 

 sects and noxious mammals. They should be taught also to 

 plant shrubs and trees that will furnish the birds food and 

 protection. It is noticeable that twenty-six people suggest 

 that children be taught to value birds. The importance of 

 this measure is becoming generally appreciated. The fact 

 that so many observers have reported the slaughter of birds 

 by boys with guns and air rifles, and the collecting of birds' 

 eggs by children, indicates that bird-study is not properly 

 taught among the children in some localities. Many ob- 

 servers report, however, that in their sections there is little 

 birds-egging or shooting of birds by boys ; and it seems to 

 be quite generally believed that this is due to an increased 

 interest in the living birds, caused by such influences as the 

 work of the Audubon Society, and that of the Society for 

 the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, by nature study in 

 the schools, by humane education and by a general public 

 interest in these subjects. No one can deny that a great 

 change in public sentiment regarding birds already has 

 begun. 



