BIRD-PROTECTION 
173 
if you please — of the bird-world. Consider 
how you can promote its enjoyment, its better- 
ment, and its perpetuation. Think not that in 
order to take an interest in birds it is necessary 
to buy a gun and a bushel of cartridges. Don’t 
think that a badly made bird-skin in a smelly 
drawer is as pleasing an object in the sight of 
Cod or man as the living bird would be. Do not, 
I beg of you, make a “collection of bird-skins;” 
for the “bird-skin habit,” when given free rein, 
becomes a scourge to the bird-world. 
Do not think that ornithology is the science of 
dead birds, named in a dead language; or that 
an attic room is the best field for the study of 
birds. Study bird -life, not merely the mummied 
remains of dead birds. And, finally, don’t col- 
lect eggs! They teach no useful lesson. The 
majority of them have no beauty, and are as 
meaningless as marbles. The pursuit of them 
is interesting, I grant, but the possession nearly 
always palls. The collector of eggs destroys 
life, fearfully, and has for all his labors and his 
pains only such as this: — O O o o. 
If you think enough of birds to mount, or have 
mounted, every fine specimen that you kill — 
aside from legitimate game — then you will be 
justified in forming a collection. There is some 
excuse for collections of well-mounted birds, 
especially those that are presented to schools, 
where thousands of young people may study 
them; but wild life is now becoming so scarce 
that the making of large private collections, for 
the benefit of one man, is a sin against Nature. 
Don’t be narrow. — In studying birds, do not 
be narrow! Use the field-glass, the camera and 
pencil, rather than the shot-gun and the micro- 
scope. Any fool with a gun can kill a bird; but 
it takes intelligence and skill to photograph 
one. 
The time was when the analysis and classifi- 
cation of our American birds were important 
work, because the bird fauna was only partially 
discovered and written up. In their days, 
Audubon, Wilson, Baird and Coues did grand 
work, because so many birds were strange, and 
needed introducing. The time was when analyz- 
ing, naming, and working up geographical dis- 
tribution were desirable and necessary. But in 
North America that period has gone by. There 
is no longer any real need for new technical 
books on the birds of this continent north of 
Mexico. The describing, and re-describing, the 
naming, re-naming and tre-naming of microscopic 
varieties, has been done enough, and in places 
overdone. 
What to do. — Henceforth, these are the things 
to be done with and for our American birds: 
1. Join actively in protecting the few birds 
that remain, and help to save them from com- 
plete extermination. 
2. Aid in teaching the millions how to know 
and enjoy the beautiful and useful birds without 
destroying them. 
It is not at all necessary that people generally 
should be able to name correctly every bird that 
the forest and field may disclose. Many species 
of warblers, and sparrows, and larger birds also, 
are so much alike that it is very difficult for any 
one save a trained ornithologist to analyze them 
correctly. The general public is not interested 
in differences that are nearly microscopic. When 
birds and mammals cannot be recognized with- 
out killing them, and removing their skulls, it is 
quite time for some of us to draw the line. 
It is entirely possible for any intelligent person 
to become well acquainted with at least one hun- 
dred and twenty-five of our birds without killing 
one; and any person who can at sight recognize 
and claim acquaintance with that number of bird- 
species may justly claim to be well informed on 
our birds. Because birds are more common than 
quadrupeds, bird-books are also more common, 
and now the most of them are beautifully illus- 
trated. The road to ornithology is now strewn 
with flowers, and the rough places have been 
made smooth. 
The Vastness of the Bird-World. — Go where 
you will upon this earth — save in the great des- 
erts — some members of the bird-world will either 
bear you company, or greet you as you advance. 
Some will sing to cheer you, others will interest 
and amuse you by the oddities of their forms 
and ways. On the mountain back-bone of the 
continent, you will meet the spruce-grouse, the 
raven, and the mountain-jay. In the foothills 
and on the great sage-brush plains, the stately 
sage-grouse and the garrulous magpie still break 
the monotony. 
In the fertile regions of abundant rain, bird- 
life is — or rather was once — bewildering in its 
variety. In the tropics, the gorgeous colors 
and harsh voices of the birds remind you that 
