HOW TO PROTECT THE BIRDS 245 



forester would be one long battle against the pests of the 

 insect world. 



Learn that it is wise to encourage birds, as well as to pro- 

 tect them from slaughter. A little food intelligently bestowed 

 is always accepted as a token of friendship and hospitality. 

 Any country dweller can draw birds around him, if he will. 

 Why grudge a few simple shelter-boxes, a few handfuls of 

 grain and a few pounds of fat pork when in exchange for them 

 you may have, even in winter's dreariness, the woodpeckers, 

 chickadees, juncos and many other winter ''residents" and 

 "visitants"? Surely, no right-hearted man or boy can pre- 

 fer solitude to the company of cheerful and beautiful feathered 

 friends. 



Don't Make Bird or Egg ''Collections." — Learn to 

 take broad views — bird's-eye views, if you please — of the 

 bird world. Consider how you can promote its enjoyment, its 

 betterment and its perpetuation. Think not that in order 

 to take an interest in birds it is necessary to buy a gun and 

 a bushel of cartridges. Don't think that a badly made bird- 

 skin in a smelly drawer is as pleasing an object in the sight of 

 God or man as the living bird would be. Do not, I beg of 

 you, make a "collection of bird-skins"; for the 'bird-skin 

 habit," when given free rein, becomes a scourge to the bird 

 world. 



Do not think that ornithology is the science of dead 

 birds, named in a dead language; or that an attic room is 

 the best field for the study of birds. Study bird-life, not 

 merely the mummied remains of dead birds. And, finally, 

 don't collect eggs! They teach no useful lesson. The ma- 



