172 What Birds Have Done With Me 



all forms of life, unchecked, breed to destructive 

 numbers. That life may be, all forms of life 

 must be held in check by their natural enemies. 

 If the people on the Street knew this and the ad- 

 ditional fact that the bird is the check upon the 

 noxious weed and noxious insect, they would con- 

 serve rather than destroy. It is worse than stupid 

 to kill our bird friends to-day it is criminal. 

 Whole species have been exterminated, many 

 others are on the verge of extermination, and all 

 species are frightfully depleted, and when all are 

 gone, life itself will quickly pass with the flutter 

 of the last wing. 



Gone This little word of four letters may be 

 compared to a gray wall shutting out the sunlight ; 

 a vast desert, where life has been and is not, a 

 desolation, a haunting memory the sadness of an 

 irreparable loss. There is the sadness of fare- 

 wells in the recollection of trackless forests, swept 

 by the destroyer, from the face of the earth, and 

 with them so many of the wood-folk have gone 

 forever. The cultivated field, the populous city, 

 are not places where mother nature may be seen 

 and studied at her best. Sylvan dells, sweet songs, 

 gliding dryads, and dancing fairies are not to be 

 found along the desolation of paved streets. 

 Scores of the dear familiar neighbors of my child- 

 hood are gone forever. Across the dawn, I look 

 in vain for the strong, swift sweep of countless 



