XLII INTRODUCTION. 
of eggs taken in low trees, high trees, medium trees; spotted sets, dark sets, plain sets, 
and light sets of the same species of bird. Many collections are made on this latter plan. 
Thus are our birds hunted and cut off, and all in the name of science; as if science 
had not long ago finished with these birds. She has weighed and measured and dis- 
sected and described them and their nests and eggs, and placed them in her cabinet; 
and the interest of science and of humanity now demands that this wholesale nest- 
robbing cease. These incidents I have given above, it is true, are but drops in the 
bucket, but the bucket would be more than full if we could get all the facts. Where 
one man publishes his notes, hundreds, perhaps thousands, say nothing, but go as 
silently about their nest-robbing as weasels. 
“It is true that the student of ornithology often feels compelled to take pind: life. 
It is not an easy matter to ‘name all the birds without a gun,’ though an opera-glass 
will often render identification entirely certain, and leave the songster unharmed; but 
once having mastered the birds, the true ornithologist leaves his gun at home. 
“Not the collectors alone are to blame for the diminishing numbers of our wild 
birds, but a large share of the responsibility rests upon quite a different class of persons, 
namely, the milliners. False taste in dress is as destructive to our feathered friends as 
are false aims in science. It is said that the traffic in the skins of our brighter plumaged 
birds, arising from their use by the milliners, reaches to hundreds of thousands annually. 
I am told of one middleman who collected from the shooters in one district, in four 
months, seventy thousand skins. It is a barbarous taste that craves this kind of orna- 
mentation. Think of a woman or git] of real refinement appearing upon the street with 
her head gear adorned with the scalps of our songsters!”’ 
PROTECTION OF BIRDS. 
Ye gentle birds of passage, ! Come, enter swift the portals, 
Come hither and ye’ll find Aye, ye may even dart, 
The best I have to offer, If so it be your pleasure 
And welcome warm and kind! Into my inmost heart, 
A dwelling I will give you, Make it resound with gladness, 
Free as your own free lay, With carols fresh and gay, 
And faithfully and truly Charm it with tunes harmcnious, 
Protect you every way! | As only poets may! : 
From the German, by FRANK SILLER. 
The true ornithologist as well as the friend of nature, and every thinking and 
kind-hearted human being is and has always been ardently attached to the birds. To 
all such the minstrels of the grove have ever new attractions, and their songs inspire 
them with joy, hope, and happiness. Life in a beautiful country place is always the 
ideal of the true lover of nature. From the very beginning he aims to beautify such a 
place, and to make it as pleasant and attractive as possible. The grounds in the 
immediate vicinity of the house abound in evergreens, ornamental trees and shrubs. 
Vines in great profusion ascend on trees and trellises, piazzas and verandas. Every- 
where we see and hear our native birds, and are surprised by their abundance and 
