PREFACE 



IN the following pages an effort has been made to 

 point out several means for bird protection which can- 

 not be embodied in legal enactments. We are always 

 ready to pass a law against an evil, but too often we 

 provide insufficient means to carry out and enforce the 

 provisions of the law. This, I regret to state, is the 

 greatest obstacle to the effective legal protection of 

 song birds, game birds, and mammals. If the friends 

 of birds and nature do not tire in the good work of 

 educating the young of the nation on these subjects, 

 the time will come when game wardens will have much 

 less to do than now. Education works slow, but it is 

 effective. 



My thanks are due to Mr. William T. Hornaday for 

 permission to quote from his most interesting and val- 

 uable report on " The Destruction of our Birds and 

 Mammals " made to the New York Zoological Society, 

 and published by that society in its second annual 

 report. Mrs. Elizabeth B. Davenport of Brattleboro, 

 Vermont, has contributed from her long experience to 

 the chapter on Feeding Birds in Winter, and Mr. 

 Frank Bond of Cheyenne, Wyoming, describes his very 



