vi PREFACE 



planting trees, shrubs, and vines especially to attract birds 

 and they systematically feed them all winter; Audubon 

 field agents are lecturing, disseminating literature, button- 

 holing legislators, and looking out for the birds' interests 

 generally in State and National Capitols, interests now 

 backed up by intelligent public opinion so strong as to 

 make the ultimate passage of protective laws in every state 

 of the Union a foregone conclusion. 



The National Conscience was awakened by the demon- 

 stration of the birds' vast economic value to the country; 

 and with the wide-spread interest now taken in birds as 

 important factors in our agricultural wealth comes a more 

 lively interest in them as neighbors. Indeed a more sane 

 and healthful and sympathetic view of all Nature follows 

 an introduction to the birds that play so important and de- 

 lightful a r6le in the great moving picture constantly un- 

 rolling its scroll before our eyes. Every one should join 

 the National Association of Audubon Societies not only 

 because there are stiU some sections of this big country 

 where plucked robins are sold on skewers in the markets, 

 but because there is to-day no American who, consciously 

 or imconsciously, is not abeady in the Society's debt. 



Neltje Bianchan. 

 Oyster Bay, Long Island, N. Y., 1917. 



