Essential Points in Bird Conservation 
By Paul B. Riis, Illinois. 
SURGING up and down, the wave of bird protec- 
tion is gaining in popularity. New converts, filled 
with enthusiasm, spring up everywhere, pause and 
give way for others to take their place. The career of 
ninety-five per cent, of bird lovers culminates in failure, 
The heap of ii'eed grozvit brushzi.'ood is an inseparable 
part of the ivoodland landscape and forms one ex- 
pedient within the reach of the bird lover to win 
back the priceless melody of the hrozvn thrasher. 
as far as concrete results are concerned, unless by 
chance their temporary enthusiasm has aroused the 
slumber of other dormant spirits of conservation among 
friends or neighbors. The latent love for birds is gen- 
erally aroused by incidents, by reading, or bird lectures, 
but the admiration all too often is prompted by a desire 
of proprietorship, and therefore short lived. The sole 
efforts are confined to putting out a feeding shelf, a 
nesting box or two. Then come the early disappoint- 
ments and failures caused sometimes through inter- 
ference by natural bird enemies, and the new convert 
fails to take corrective measures, or then in a half 
hearted and negative way only. 
The bird lover, who possesses the courage of his con- 
by hundreds of others becomes his aim, regardless of 
personal sacrifices or evident and positive results. 
The greatest conceded enemy of bird life is man. The 
spread of civilization, the tillage of land has created 
unfavorable conditions under which birds may multiply 
Small windfall limbs and branches, and dead shrubs 
judiciously stacked in the least accessible corners, 
among thorns and brambles, are eagerly appropriated 
by the brown thrashers. 
and thrive. The ground builders and seed eaters have 
found changed conditions favoring their increase, while 
others, the aquatic birds and birds of the forest have 
felt its influence and are slowly and surely diminishing. 
But even some of these have learned to adapt themselves 
to the changed conditions and have transferred their 
housekeeping from a hollow tree or limb into nesting 
boxes. Noted among these are the woodduck, sparrow 
hawk, flycatchers, tree swallows, purple martins, flickers, 
woodpeckers, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, wrens and 
bluebirds. There are still others which have learned to 
.i denizen of the ivild, well satisfied with 
his makeshift home. 
The secret of the same bnishpile with its successful 
application. 
victions, rises above the early failures, above the make 
believe of bird protection. He widens his circle and 
sphere of activities with the purpose of protecting the 
species, even beyond his ken and horizon. His interest forsake the projecting shelf of a cliff or the crotch of a 
is not centered in the individual chicadee, attracted to tree for the shelf nesting box of civilization, among 
his feeding shelf ; its presence there marks but an in- which are found the phoebe and robin. These birds in 
cident, a ripple in the ever widening ring of his activi- a measure have also learned to adapt themselves to 
ties. The economic importance of one bird multiplied changed conditions. Owing to the comparative ease, 
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