BIRDS ON HATS, ETC. 85 
a certain preparation is recommended and a correspond- 
ent writes that he has a class of seven boys learning the 
art of stuffing birds, an art which the average boy should 
not learn. 
Withdraw your support from all persons that work 
for bird destruction. Let individuals and societies 
notify the publishers of papers and magazines, when 
such advertisements appear. The next step would be 
to enact laws forbidding the trade in mounted song 
birds and in bird eggs. The advertising of such ma- 
terial would be or could be made prima facie evidence 
of a violation of the law. 
I think it will also be found necessary to prohibit or 
regulate by law the caging and keeping of native live 
song birds. If a prohibition is not considered wise, 
then a license should be imposed, but such a license 
would be difficult to collect. In Europe a regular bird- 
catching industry sprang up and had to be ostracized 
by law. One can find now in almost any bird store 
mocking birds and Kentucky cardinals. To what ex- 
tent this trade has affected the number of these birds 
in their native haunts farther south I do not know. I 
surmise, however, that it must reduce them consicer- 
ably, because for evéry bird that is successfully raised 
or tamed, two or three will perish. Let us go where 
wild birds are not forced to sing behind iron bars. 
The actual song-bird hunters, those fellows that 
shoot song birds in order to devour the tiny morsels, 
deserve no mercy whatever. They are mostly people 
who come from European countries where all mamma- 
