88 OUR NATIVE BIRDS 
the potato. What does a man want with a gun, any- 
how, during the close season? It is all right to buy 
your twelve-year-old boy a gun or a.22 rifle, but see to 
it that he does not shoot at everything that creeps, 
runs, or flies! Boys going about with firearms in towns 
or in the immediate vicinity of towns are an unmiti- 
gated nuisance. They do not know any better, but 
their elders do know better, or they should be taught 
by the courts. ‘ 
A communication which I find in the March number 
of Recreation of 1899 contains such a sad comment 
upon the common sense and self control of so many 
city outing parties that I reproduce it here : — 
“Many people visit our trout streams during the 
summer. “All—men, boys, and, I am sorry to say, 
ladies — carry .22 rifles. Our visitors are in the coun- 
try for fun, and when they are not fishing, they must 
shoot. So our robins, larks, and bluebirds yield their 
lives to afford a moment’s amusement to creatures of a 
presumedly higher scale. One incident I noticed par- 
ticularly. I saw a pair of bluebirds building in a hol- 
- low stump, and as often as I passed I looked at them. 
After a while, five beautiful eggs lay in the nest. At 
my next visit, I was greeted by the gaping mouths of 
four baby birds. A short time after, I saw two ladies 
—save the mark — shooting .22’s near this nest. The 
next evening I passed, and there beside the stump lay 
the mother bird with a bullet hole through her body, 
and in the nest were her four babies, dead of cold and 
