HOW THE BIRDS KNOW 347 



been so keen tliat most observers liave shot first 

 and questioned afterward." Exactly! This is the 

 history of every rare bird of the country. Of course, 

 these methods result in the birds' "multiplying 

 and replenishing the earth" with their species! 



Then at last the nesting. locality of the Kirtland, 

 hunted from Bermuda to Minnesota, was found in 

 Oscoda County, Michigan. Did the finder shut 

 his eyes and his mouth and muzzle his gun, and 

 leave this rarest bird of our ornithology to its 

 chance to enrich the earth with its beauty and 

 song and to help preserve our lives with its work in 

 worm extermination .f* Did he.'' A woman would; 

 but did the man? The report reads: "Very grati- 

 fying success. Fine series of skins, male, female, 

 nestlings, full-fledged young, nest, and eggs." The 

 only nesting haunt of the Kirtland ever found in- 

 vaded with a gun! The rare bird once more a 

 fugitive at the hands of science! This is a real 

 crime, and a law should be enacted to punish it, 

 at least in the future to prevent it. Let the word 

 be sent abroad that the next man who kills a 

 Kirtland becomes in Biblical phrase "a stench" 

 in the nostrils of bird lovers, which term is syn- 

 onymous with bird protectors. 



