1 66 What Birds Have Done With Me 



one for which there is any aesthetic feeling. Other 

 birds appeal to them entirely according to the 

 quality of the bird's flesh and this makes the work 

 of the Department of Conservation very difficult 

 in enforcing its laws for the protection of the in- 

 sectivorous birds. These people have shot Robins 

 and Wood Thrushes and Vireos and King-birds 

 all their lives and it is difficult to explain to them 

 why they should stop it now, and still harder to 

 keep them from killing these birds. Mr. A. E. 

 Manint, the Department of Conservation's agent 

 in St. Tammany Parish, has done remarkably 

 good work in protecting the birds in his terri- 

 tory and, at the same time, has kept the good 

 will of the people. He has been diplomatic, and 

 from what I saw, it appears that most of the 

 people like him and respect his authority. 



"People with whom I talked knew the birds 

 by local names to me entirely new names and 

 in many cases it was difficult to tell what species 

 they were talking about as their efforts to describe 

 the bird's appearance were often very misleading. 

 For instance they told me that I should be there a 

 little later when the "Pops" came. Their hand- 

 somest bird, they said, was the "Red Pop," while 

 the "Blue Pop," and the "Green Pop" were also 

 beauties. I later found that their "Red Pop" is 

 the male Painted Bunting or Nonpareil, while 

 their "Green Pop" is the female of this species. 



