188 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Losing our birds means not alone the loss of the jewels of the 

 landscape, beautiful in form and color, — not alone the exquisite 

 melody, so harmonious and sweet that good Saint Isaac Walton 

 exclaimed, "Lord what music hast thou for saints in heaven, when 

 thou hast such music for bad men on earth !" Not alone examples- 

 of conjugal affection, sacrificing parental devotion, gratitude, 

 cheerfulness, intelligence, architectural skill, — not alone are the 

 finest sensibilities outraged ; we suffer in physical comfort, finiin- 

 cial advantages, and in our general well being. Forty years ago 

 one could see a thousand birds while taking a summer drive ; now 

 we may travel miles and not see a bird, unless it be the pestiferous 

 English sparrow. 



The poor innocents have indeed found this an unkind world and 

 are fast disappearing before the birds and beasts of prey ; the boys 

 and men armed with breech-loaders ; the destruction of our forests ; 

 the electric wire and lights ; the pot-hunter and market man, and — • 

 worst of all — Christian women ruled by the dictates of thought- 

 less, ridiculous fashion. The Audubon Society of New York finds 

 that more than 25,000,000 of our most beautiful birds are annually 

 slaughtered, their skins stuffed with arsenic and worn, entire or in 

 pieces, by females who claim to be gentle, tender, sensitive women. 

 Shame on a cruel and barbarous fashion which was, as is well 

 known, established by a Parisian harlot and which no decent women, 

 can knowingly imitate ! We can but think of that Roman matron 

 who had great sport in seeing two hundred and forty Christian 

 men, women, and children torn piecemeal by lions on a single day. 



The extent of the traffic in bird skins is shown by a few facts. 

 In 1880 a New York house received au order from England for 

 600,000 ox-eye sandpipers. A single ball dress worn in New 

 York City in 1883 was covered with a thousand Brazilian humming 

 birds. A friend of undoubted veracity told the speaker that he 

 saw more tlian three bushels of birds, — none larger than the 

 robin — brought at one time to a hotel in Florida at which he 

 was a guest. 



We are encouraged by the fact that the best men and women 

 are now doing a great work in preventing this destruction. Queen 

 Victoria and the Princess of Wales have emphatically expressed 

 their disapproval of the use of birds in any manner for personal 

 decoration ; the latter having ordered that no designs for her own 

 or her daughter's costumes shall include any birds or parts of birds. 



