The Sieur de Monts National Monument 

 as a Bird Sanctuary 



With the opening of the Sieur de Monts National Mon- 

 ument upon Mount Desert Island — the first National Park 

 east of the Mississippi — a large and important area has been 

 set aside as a bird reserve. 



The significance of this new creation, moreover, can 

 scarcely be overestimated; for, the lover of wild life, the 

 scientist, and the farmer alike possess interests in the con- 

 servation of our birds. 



The principal causes for these several interests are three : 

 Aesthetic, Scientific, and Economic; the first of which, in 

 its broad appeal, is the Aesthetic. 



THE AESTHETIC REASON 



Our wild birds constitute one of the most beautiful and 

 essential elements in nature. Without their abundant 

 presence, the streams, the forests and the flowers — even the 

 sky and the ocean — would lose their chief living charm. 



The imagination shrinks before the picture of a spring, 

 no matter how lovely, deprived of the sweet voices and flash- 

 ing forms of our early migrants; of a birdless summer forest, 

 or of an autumn without its cheerful bands of roving feath- 

 ered hunters. 



Yet with the rapidly increasing occupation of all avail- 

 able lands — especially along our crowded eastern seaboard — 

 for the purposes of industry, agriculture, and residence, all 

 the wilder and more picturesque regions will soon be greatly 

 diminished in extent, eventually to disappear almost com- 

 pletely, together with the wild and interesting forms of life 

 which they at present shelter, unless considerable tracts are 

 set apart, before it is too late, in order to conserve them. 



For it is well-known that whenever the numbers of any 



