238 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



goes forward with shameful enthusiasm. After 

 escaping countless dangers, thousands fall, hig 

 bagfuls are gathered, many are left wounded to 

 die slowly, no Red Cross Society to help them. 

 Next day, Sunday, the blood and leggins vanish 

 from the most devout of the bird-butchers, who 

 go to church, carrying gold-headed canes instead 

 of guns. After hymns, prayers, and sermon 

 they go home to feast, to put God's song birds 

 to use, put them in their dinners instead of in 

 their hearts, eat them, and suck the pitiful little 

 drumsticks. It is only race living on race, to 

 be sure, but Christians singing Divine Love need 

 not be driven to such straits while wheat and 

 apples grow and the shops are full of dead cattle. 

 Song birds for food ! Compared with this, mak- 

 ing kindlings of pianos and violins would be 

 pious economy. 



The larks come in large flocks from the hills 

 and mountains in the fall, and are slaughtered 

 as ruthlessly as the robins. Fortunately, most 

 of our song birds keep back in leafy hidings, 

 and are comparatively inaccessible. 



The water ouzel, in his rocky home amid 

 foaming waters, seldom sees a gun, and of all 

 the singers I like him the best. He is a plainly 

 dressed little bird, about the size of a robin, with 

 short, crisp, but rather broad wings, and a tail 

 of moderate length, slanted up, giving him, with 

 his nodding, bobbing manners, a wrennish look. 



