THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



Ladies and Gentlemen : 



It is my pleasurable privilege to greet you with words of 

 welcome on this auspicious occasion, and I am with you in 

 spirit, though in person far from the scene of your gathering 

 in the interest of that delightful pursuit to which many of the 

 best years of my life have been devoted. I fondly hoped 

 and fully intended to preside over your deliberations ; but 

 the fates willed otherwise, and imposed a seemingly capri- 

 cious migration westward to the shores of the Pacific, at the 

 time I would have remained in the city by the inland sea, 

 could I have consulted my own desire. But distance debars 

 me not from cherishing the wish to say a few words you may 

 be glad to hear on the use and beauty of birds. 



Birds are not less useful than beautiful. It is said that 

 beauty is its own excuse for being ; it is said that a thing of 

 beauty is a joy forever ; it may be said that birds add to their 

 other charms the beauty of utility. One use of beauty is to 

 stimulate and gratify our aesthetic sense ; perception of the 

 beautiful is an end in itself, for it strengthens and develops 

 some of our highest faculties, some of our finest feelings. 

 One use of birds subserves this noble purpose ; but other 

 uses are theirs, of the sort to satisfy the most practical util- 

 itarian, devoid though he be of all appreciation of abstract 

 beauty. For I venture to assert, and hope to be able to 

 show, that the degree of civilization which the human race 

 has reached would have been difficult if not impossible with- 

 out the assistance of our feathered friends. 



As we all know, the natural man was a wild beast in the 

 beginning, not a little lower than the angels, and not much 



