CHAPTER LIV. 



WHY PROTECT THE BIRDS? 



Since the birds first gladdened the earth with their morn- 

 ing song and the beauty of their plumage, there have always 

 been those who have loved them and who have done all they 

 could to protect and care for them. But in this busy, hurrying 

 world of ours where the dollar has assumed such abnormal 

 importance, we must be able to give a practical reason for their 

 protection as well as an aesthetic one. For many years birds 

 were ruthlessly murdered for the mere love of the sport and 

 because we did not realize that we were harming ourselves 

 by permitting such acts. But the untiring work of scientists 

 has proved beyond a doubt the great value of the birds, and 

 this is a first and sufficient reason for their protection. 



Asa Gray, one of the greatest of American botanists, has 

 said, "Animals depend absolutely upon vegetables for their 

 being. The great object for which the All-wise Creator estab- 

 lished the vegetable kingdom is, that plants might stand on the 

 surface of the earth between the mineral and animal creations, 

 and organize portions of the former for the substance of the 

 latter." This statement is but a reiteration of what is recorded 

 in Holy Writ, for there it is said, "And God said, and to every 

 beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air, and to every- 

 thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is the breath 

 of life, I have given every green herb for meat." 



Weed and Dearborn in their most excellent book, Birds in 

 Their Relation to Man, say, "A correct idea of the economic 

 role of the feathered tribes may be obtained only by a broader 

 view of nature's methods a view in which we must ever keep 

 before the mind's eye the fact that the parts of the organic 

 world from normal to man, are linked together in a thousand 

 ways, the net result being that unstable equilibrium commonly 

 called 'the balance of nature.' " In preserving the balance of 



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