1 64 What Birds Have Done With Me 



ing song and insectivorous birds that goes back 

 to the first settlement of the country and the pro- 

 fessional man, the business man and the negro, 

 with his three dollar gun, are all defying the fed- 

 eral law and are active as ever in bird destruction. 

 Bird protection has utterly failed to get the moral 

 support of the best people in even fairly pro- 

 gressive cities and where this is so, what can 

 you expect of lewd fellows of the baser sort in 

 little villages and back country places? 



Biloxi, Mississippi, long a winter resort for 

 Northern people, ought to be more progressive 

 than the average city, and yet after five winters of 

 persistent work for bird protection, talking in all 

 their schools and writing articles for the city pa- 

 pers, I am frank to say I can see small results. 

 The same paper that published my protest against 

 killing Mocking-birds, published a vitriolic re- 

 joinder from a woman who attempted to justify 

 the killing on the ground that she preferred straw- 

 berries to Mocking birds. Nothing that I have 

 ever written about birds has been refused pub- 

 lication in city papers and the schools clamor 

 for more talks they could not be worth less than 

 they cost and I am called the "Bird-man" and 

 "Bird's Attorney" and my acquaintance with the 

 children of the public school is extensive, but I am 

 assured by good lawyers that no jury would con- 

 vict were I to have a person arrested for viola- 



