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A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of The Audubon Societies 



Vol. XXIV September- October. 1922 No. 5 



Stories from Birdcraft Sanctuary 



By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 



II. THE RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF BIRD-TRAPPING 



IT IS one thing to set apart a piece of land and call it a 'Wild-Bird Sanc- 

 tuary' and quite another to make it justify the name. Unless this land 

 be guarded against enemies, both human and wild, either by a fence 

 difificult to climb or by a constant intelligent patrolling by a man with a keen 

 eye and steady aim, the very means taken to attract birds in unusual numbers 

 is sure to be followed by a great increase in the dangers that beset bird-life. 



The first half-year at Birdcraft was quite enough to convince us that the 

 making of a sanctuary must be a militant rather than a peaceful process, and 

 our first step was to obtain permission from the State Fish and Game Com- 

 mission to destroy any form of wild life that should prove detrimental to the 

 object for which the place was developed. 



The list of the forbidden reads as follows: cats, weasels, rats. Crows, Cooper's 

 and Sharp-shinned Hawks, Shrikes, Jays (when they start to break up nests), 

 and red squirrels; also, the two alien enemies, English Sparrows and Starlings. 

 Yes, the Starling, the bird of poets, a feature of the English downs, where they 

 hover over the flocks of grazing sheep, whistling melodiously as they either 

 follow them or alight upon the backs, deep in wool, to pick off the tormenting 

 ticks. Our Biological Survey also maintains the Starling's excellence by 

 stomach analysis, nevertheless, to the country lover and songbird protector, 

 this bird is oban. For does he not devour the food of our native birds, espe- 

 cially in winter, but also fights with them in the nesting season and wrecks the 

 nests and kills the young of species as large as the Robin? Does he not give 

 a false alarm of spring, when we are awaiting the Redwing? an ethical crime 

 in itself. 



If the English Sparrow was a menace, the Starling is an accomplished cut- 

 throat, and whatever he may be at home, or whatever his stomach contents 

 may prove him to do from a hard and fast scientific viewpoint, in and about 

 Birdcraft he is a Bolshevist. In one afternoon a flock stripped the berries 



