48 Birds Every Child Should Know 
alive. When all the states make and enforce 
similar laws, there will be an end to the barbaric 
slaughter of many birds for no more worthy 
end than the trimming of hats for thought- 
less girls and women. Birds of bright plumage 
have suffered most, of course, but the mocking- 
birds' nests have been robbed for so many 
generations to furnish caged fledglings for both 
American and European bird dealers, that shot 
guns could have done no work more deadly. 
Where the people are too ignorant to understand 
what mockingbirds are doing for them every day 
in the year by eating insects in their gardens, 
fields, parks, and public squares, they are shot 
in great numbers for the sole offence of helping 
themselves to a small fraction of the very fruit 
they have helped to preserve. Even the birds 
ought to have a “square deal” in free America: 
don’t you think so ? 
Although not afflicted with “the fatal gift of 
beauty,” at least not the gaudy kind, like the 
cardinal’s and scarlet tanager’s, the mocking- 
bird’s wonderful voice has brought upon him 
an equal quantity of troubles. Keenly intelli- 
gent though he is, he does not know enough to 
mope and refuse to sing in a cage, but whiles 
away the tedious hours of his captivity by all 
manner of amusing and delightful sounds. In- 
deed it has been found that the household pet is 
apt to be a better mocker than the wild bird — 
