PEOTECTION OF BIRDS. 



243 



Thousands of Ijirds are killed for the milliners. The camps 

 of Italians, where employees engaged in public works are 

 quartered, furnish many of these gunners. These men will 

 shoot birds of any kind, anywhere and on any man's premises. 

 Everything that wears feathers is considered by them as fair 

 game. 



The appointment of officers to enforce the bird laws might 

 assist much in bird protection. Children in the public schools 

 should be taught the usefulness of birds, and it should be 

 generally considered a crime to destroy insect-eating birds. 

 The farmer might as well allow men to steal his fruit and 

 grain as to shoot the insect-eating birds on his premises. 

 The number of birds destroyed by cats is astonishing. I 

 have known a single cat to break up the nests of six pairs of 

 birds in a day, destroying all the young and one of the old 

 birds. Many wild and vagabond cats roam the woods and 

 orchards and destroy thousands of birds. Outside the cities 

 cats probably do enough injury by killing birds to much 

 more than counterbalance all the benefit derived from them 

 in the way of destrojang rats and mice. A few traps prop- 

 erly attended by a bright boy will do more towards clearing 

 a place of rats and mice than half a dozen average cats. 



The number of such birds as nest in boxes or hollow trees 

 can be increased by putting up boxes in which they may 

 breed, and protecting them as far as possible from the English 

 sparrow and other enemies. If evergreen hedges and patches 

 of shrubbery are provided as retreats for birds to which they 

 can fly when pursued bj^ hawks, and if plenty of wild and 

 cultivated fruit is grown in the vicinity, such a locality will 

 be much frequented by birds. 



Birds may be attracted to infested localities in the winter 

 or summer by supplying them with food and safe nesting- 

 places. A people who protect and foster insectivorous birds 

 cannot fail to add materially to the prosperity of agriculture. 



