1110 



A PLEA FOR THE BIRDS. 



awake?' And that wakes some other one in a little further tree ; 

 and one note joins to another, Until the birds in all the neighbor- 

 hood are aroused, and then all at once there breaks out such a choir 

 of song of every description that it would seem as if the heaven was 

 packed full of birds from end to end, and that the whole neighbor- 

 hood was a gigantic organ. That holds on for half an hour or so ; 

 then they go to breakfast, and I go back to bed. Their grace of 

 motion, their beauty of plumage, the interesting study that there is 

 in their nidification and in the rearing of their young, add also to 

 this vocal reason, making the birds among our most attractive sum- 

 mer interests. They are not only this to the fancy and to the 

 emotions, but they are our benefactors. For it may be said, I 

 think, in the temperate and tropic zones, that the development of 



insect life is so enor- 

 mous that if they 

 were not to be re- 

 duced by the birds' 

 feeding upon their 

 eggs or upon them, 

 it would be almost 

 fatal to our wheat- 

 fields, and certainly 

 fatal to both our 

 fruits and our flow- 

 ers in the garden. 

 And every horticult- 

 urist ought to be a 

 benefactor of the 

 birds, and to the end 

 of his life he wo n't 

 do as much for them as they have done for him. 



" Now, it ha^ become a fashion to adorn bonnets and dresses 

 with the skins of birds ; and, as color is in great demand, the most 

 beautiful of them all are selected for that purpose. And to such an 

 extent is it carried, that there is really danger that many kinds of 

 birds will be. exterminated in many portions of our country. They 

 keep nobody warm, they are not necessary, they serve jio one end 

 except that of taste, and only taste, in fashionable circles. I admit 

 their beauty, I admit the charm that there is connected with them, 

 whether upon the fan, or upon the bonnet, or upon , the breast, or 

 upon the skirt. There can be no question of that. Nevertheless, it 

 is inhuman. The slaughter of the birds that is going on is such as 



Fig. 1533.— Pigmy Piculet. 



Feeds on parasites of forest trees.* 



