Mbere tbe /iDocftinQ^bfrb Sings 



cannot prevent the complete disappearance 

 of those beautiful animals from a country 

 devoted to modern agriculture. When 

 all the woods are cut down, and all the 

 plains are put to the plow, there is no 

 home left for the bear and the bison. 

 Drain the bogs, and what can the wood- 

 cock do for a living ? Reclaim all the wet 

 lands, and ditch away the waters of ponds 

 and lakes, but after that look in vain for 

 snipe and duck. Destroy the thickets and 

 briery tangles (they are unsightly and 

 unprofitable on the farm, no matter how 

 necessary they are to the quail), and then 

 look in vain for bevies in the neatly shorn 

 fields. Your bluebirds, that once had the 

 old worm fences with hollow stakes to 

 build in, cannot accept the barbed-wire 

 substitute ; where shall their nests be hid- 

 den? What are the gay woodpeckers to 

 do when you carefully cut away and burn 

 every dead tree and bough? 



Every summer I am more and more 

 curious to know how the meadow-lark 

 survives, how it succeeds in rearing a 

 brood, when year by year the meadows 



