144 
BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
to perform in relation to the animal world. Because we have 
invented guns is no evidence whatever of our right to indiscrim- 
inate slaughter of animal life. That slaughter is all too easy 
by reason of the cheap price at which guns may be procured — 
a condition which is helping to create a large army of undisciplin- 
ed hunters, a dangerous force of deer-slaying guerilla, who are, 
by the way, as apt to kill each other as the animals they are 
hunting. So far as the birds are concerned, their destruction 
is a short-sighted and a dangerous proceeding. You all remem- 
ber the Poet’s Tale in Longfellow’s Wayside Inn collection, 
The Birds of Killingworth.” The beautiful spring had come, 
the purple buds were expanding, the rivulets, rejoicing, rushed 
merrily on and burst into great streams. 
The robin and the blue-bird, piping loud, 
Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee; 
The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud 
Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be; 
And hungry crows assembled in a crowd, 
Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly, 
Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said; 
“Give us, O Lord, this day our daily bread!” 
Thus came the jocund Spring in Killingworth, 
In fabulous days, some hundred years ago; 
And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the earth, 
Heard with alarm the cawing of the crow, 
That mingled with the universal mirth, 
Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe; 
They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful words 
To swift destruction the whole race of birds. 
A town meeting was convened to consider the matter, and 
there assembled the farmer, the squire, the deacon, and all the 
other pompous people who give dignity to such an assemblage. 
The birds had but one friend among them all, the village school- 
master. He was in love with the fair Almira of the poem, and 
so his heart was tuned to compassion and his soul to love and 
tenderness, and he protested against the determination to put 
the birds to death. 
“ The thrush that carols at the dawn of day 
fc^From the green steeples of the piny wood; 
rbe oriole in the elm; the noisy jay, 
Jargoning like a foreigner at his food, 
