22 



THE OOLOGIST. 



thoughtlessly questioned their sacred 

 right to existence. Pleasant were the 

 days he shared in their company listen- 

 ing to their varied songs and studying 

 their characteristics. Carefully he 

 watched their love making and nest 

 building and took a sort of parental in- 

 terest in the growing broods. He saw 

 them depart southward with a feeling 

 akin to sadness but this was more than 

 balanced by the pleasure of welcoming 

 their return, besides the winter was 

 a time for compiling his observations 

 and reading the works of other bird 

 lovers. What most appealed to his 

 sympathy was the dangers that con- 

 stantly threatened the lives of these 

 birds. Lamentable was the havoc 

 wrought by severe storms, reptiles, 

 mammals and a few fierce members of 

 their order but this was the natural 

 course of things and his regrets were 

 untarnished by indignation while on 

 the other hand it appeared to him that 

 man had no possible right to take bird 

 life or make them captives and such 

 proceedings seemed an unpardonable 

 sin and wanton cruelty. The shot 

 gun student and the sportsman rarely 

 entered his field of observation but the 

 head-gear of the feminine gender, pro- 

 fuse in bird skin decorations, was con- 

 stantly before his eyes. While not in- 

 clined to interfere in behalf of those 

 capable of defending themselves in the 

 case of these birds, so much in need of 

 human friends to awaken interest, 

 sympathy and comparison in their fa- 

 vor, he unhesitatingly championed 

 their cause upon every favorable op- 

 portunity and, be it said to woman's 

 credit, not wholly in vain. As he con- 

 templated the thousands, aye millions, 

 of birds sacrificed to the caprice of 

 silly fashion— the vast breeding 

 grounds of herons and egrets entirely 

 depopulated, the colonies of terns and 

 multitudes of brilliant dressed and use- 

 ful smaller birds obliterated from the 

 face of the earth— he was apt to ex- 



claim "Oh cruel, heartless, unfeeling 

 woman they are the only wings you 

 will over wear" but a little reflection 

 convinced him such an exclamation 

 would be an injustice. 



Women are the tender, affectionate, 

 susceptible flowers of the human race, 

 indespensible as angels to heaven. 

 Loving, gentle, sympathetic and re- 

 fined by nature and strong in their af- 

 fect ions and warmly charitable in pros- 

 perity and of commendable fortitude 

 and generous sacrifice under adversity 

 and more lavishing of kindness friend- 

 ship and love than man they indeed 

 constitute the charm of his existence 

 and before all the world is he to them 

 most indebted, but in woman's consti- 

 tution are many little weaknessess 

 that should be overlooked or respected. 

 Her little world is home and society 

 and she is an unconscious slave to the 

 cut of fashion, which has caused the 

 death of so many innocent birds. It 

 is not from indiff^erence to cruelty and 

 death that she wears bird skins upon 

 her hat but because in the gay unthink- 

 ing pleasure she inhabits, birds are only 

 spoken of in relation to style and only 

 thought of by reason of there beauty. 

 She has never pictured the distress 

 and pain that must follow the depriva- 

 tion of young of their parents or a fe- 

 male of its mate. Could our lady 

 friends see a flock of terns hovering 

 over a fallen comrade reluctant to aban- 

 don it to its fate, so strong are the ties 

 of friendship so compassionate are these 

 birds, and see the millinery agent tak- 

 ing advantage of their sypmpathy and 

 heroism to ruthlessly cut down bird 

 after bird while on the stretch of sandy 

 beaches, young wait and watch in vain 

 and die a lingering miserable death; 

 could they but see this he knew birds 

 would come off their hats forever. The 

 truth is not more than one in a thous- 

 and ever wonder where these birds 

 come from, how they are procured or 

 whether it is right to take so much life 



