134 Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



women who hope to prove more attractive be- 

 cause of a gaudy head-gear. But what of our 

 laws for the protection of birds? I hear you 

 ask, What of them, indeed ? What is any law 

 that by common consent is looked upon as a 

 dead letter? Who ever troubles himself to 

 enforce it, and by what a host of technicalities 

 can it be evaded ! How common, too, to find 

 those most interested, people living in the coun- 

 try, content with the seductive half-knowledge 

 due to generalization from insufficient facts, and 

 declaring war when every condition of their 

 material prosperity calls for peace ! No birds 

 and a plague of insects, a plague of insects 

 and the loss of the harvest I would that these 

 words were written upon every guide-post at 

 the cross-roads and hung upon the walls of 

 every school-house in the land. 



But it is wisdom on my part to leave to other 

 and abler hands this subject of bird protection. 

 Perhaps I am too prejudiced in their favor. 

 The cunning of a thieving crow so wins my ad- 

 miration that I am blinded to the financial as- 

 pect of the question. There is positive pleasure 

 in being cheated by a crow ; it so effectually 



