93 
Suggestions in Regard to Educational Work. 
We must awaken an enlightened, all-pervading public 
sentiment in favor of bird protection; then there will be no 
difficulty in enacting legislation and taking measures which 
will prevent the extirpation of our native species of birds. 
Until this is done, all laws for the protection of birds will 
be more or less inoperative; no law will be generally re- 
spected or can be fully enforced. The citizen must under- 
stand that the bird is the property of the State, and must 
take a lively interest in its preservation, guarding its exist- 
ence as he would that of his own domesticated animals. 
He should also have an abiding interest in its life, its propa- 
gation, its food and its enemies. Such an interest must be 
awakened first among the school children, for every sane, nor- 
mal child has some of the instincts of a naturalist. Children 
should be taught not to skin birds or collect their eggs, but to 
build bird houses, furnish materials for nest building, feed 
birds, and attract them about the home. They should be 
told of the usefulness of birds as destroyers of injurious 
insects and noxious mammals. They should be induced to 
plant shrubs and trees that furnish the birds food and 
protection. It is noticeable that twenty-six people suggest 
that children be taught to value birds. The importance of 
this measure is becoming generally appreciated. The fact 
that so many observers have reported the slaughter of birds 
by boys with guns and air rifles, and the collecting of birds’ 
eggs by children, indicates that bird study is not properly 
taught among the children in some localities. Many ob- 
servers report, however, that in their sections there is little 
bird’s-egging or shooting of birds by boys; and it seems to 
be quite generally believed that this is due to an increased 
interest in the living birds, caused by such influences as the 
work of the Audubon Society, and that of the Society for 
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, by nature study in 
the schools, by humane education and by a general public 
interest in these subjects. . Ho one can deny that a great 
change in public sentiment regarding birds already has 
begun. 
