8q8 1 Report of Committee on Bird Protection. IO^n 



and made as many suggestions as I could, as well as enclosing a 

 very comprehensive plan suggested by our State Superintendent. 



"The next experience had to do with the articles I am pre- 

 paring every week, and as you already have copies up to date of 

 the papers which contain them, you will be able to judge how 

 very effectual my clippings may prove. After the first article I 

 met an acquaintance who did not wait to greet me, but exclaimed 

 impulsively : ' Oh, Mrs. Stephenson, I read your article, and am 

 so glad you wrote it. I never felt like wearing a bird, but did 

 not realize how cruel it was before.' 



" The past week, after the appearance of ' The Cruel Through 

 Ignorance ' article, a fashionable acquaintance said : * Those arti- 

 cles you are writing are doing a great deal of good, I know. 

 Why, I took out my last winter's hat, with its aigrettes and birds, 

 and I could not think of wearing it again after the " As Others 

 See Us " appeared.' 



" A friend in a neighboring village told of his boy's reading it 

 at their Friday exercises in their schools, and that as soon as they 

 had finished, the principal gave the school a genuinely fine lecture 

 on the subject of cruelty toward birds. 



" These are little straws, but they help to show how small a 

 wind sets them in motion, do they not ? 



" These last quotations from a letter would not be made if it 

 were not that the position of the writer makes its promise 

 mean very much ; she is a wealthy young lady who supports, as 

 well as teaches in, a Kindergarten in Leavenworth, Kansas, among 

 the poorest class of miners ; she knew nothing whatever of birds, 

 but in her anxiety to instill her poor little barbarians with some 

 ideas of mercy, sought to learn about the birds so that she might 

 interest them through her personal observations. She sent for 

 Chapman's ' Hand- Book ' and, with opera glasses to aid us, we 

 had many a lovely day with the birds. She said, ' How I did 

 enjoy my summer, and how much you did for me. But your 

 reward will not come here, unless you count it rew^ard to enthuse 

 one more to bird study.' 



"These are all the crumbs which have come back, but I know 

 there must be more, and shall do all I can in every way possible. 

 My efforts to unite wdth the Hunters' Clubs for the enforcing of 



