This is the bad side of it. The good side of it is that to- 

 day your boy of twelve has an absolutely different attitude 

 toward bird life from your attitude when you were that age. 

 He knows more about birds than you did, but when he sees a 

 nest of eggs the last thing he thinks of is breaking it up. He 

 begins to worry about red squirrels and cats and blacksnakes, 

 and instead of adding the treasure trove to his egg collection, 

 or smashing the outfit from pure savage instinct — which came 

 to him honestly enough from his hunting ancestors, even 

 though it is high time to change it — he gets his fun from spy- 

 ing on the parent birds feeding the youngsters, and his tri- 

 umph from seeing the fledglings safely start their flight out 

 into the world. 



This is a very wonderful transformation in human habits, 

 to have come about in so short a time. It is not true of all 

 boys, or, in many localities as yet, of any boys. But it is so 

 true of hundreds of thousands of youngsters all over America, 

 and so many oldsters, too, have found a new and fine enthu- 

 siasm in actively studying and helping bird life that it is fair 

 to say Americans have in a single generation changed from 

 bird enemies to bird friends. 



Writers and naturalists like John Burroughs, Ernest 

 Thompson Seton, Dallas Lore Sharp, Frank Chapman and a 

 score of others have had a chief part in revolutionizing man's 

 manners toward the birds. They have stimulated the imag- 

 ination and have made study and knowledge easy and attract- 

 ive. They have furnished every community with a smaller or 

 greater number of bird students and nature lovers. 



To make their work count for as much as possible, to 

 organize for big practical results the new enthusiasm for help- 

 ing bird life, it is absolutely necessary that there should be 

 efficient community endeavor through local societies such as 

 the very sucessful Meriden Association, and the lusty, if 

 young, Greenwich Bird Protective Society. This first year book 

 of the Greenwich association of bird lovers, which owes its 

 existence and its zest chiefly to the extraordinary and admir- 

 able devotion of its president, Mr. Niel Morrow Ladd, is a 

 handbook as well as a year book, and should be a convenient 

 and invaluable guide for anyone who wishes really to do 

 something with any sentiment or convictions he may have 

 acquired as to the beauty, poetry and economic value of the 

 charming feathered creatures about our village and country 

 homes. C, D. L. 



