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OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE WISCONSIN AND ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETIES 
One Year 25 Cents Single Copy 3 Cent,s 
Published by the Wisconsin Audubon Society, at* Applet»on, Wisconsin. 
Entered as second-class matter May 16, 1904 at Appleton, Wis., under the act of congress of Mar. 3, ’79 
VOL. VIII JUNE, 1905 No. 2 
/ 
TO THE DANDELION. 
Dear, common flower, that grow’st beside the 
way, 
Fringing the dusty road with 1 harmless gold, 
First pledge of blithesome May, 
My childhood’s earliest thoughts are linked 
with thee; 
The sight of thee calls back the robin’s song 
Who, from the dark old tree 
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long. 
And I, secure in childish piety, 
Listened as if I heard an angel sing 
With news from heaven, which he did bring 
Fresh every day to my untainted ears, 
When birds and flowers and I were happy 
peers. 
How like a prodigal doth nature seem, 
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! 
Thou teachest me to deem 
More sacredly of every human heart, 
Since each' reflects in joy its scanty gleam 
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret 
show 
Did we but pay . the love we owe, 
And with a child’s undoubting wisdom look 
On all these living pages of God’s book. 
—James Russell Lowell. 
A SPARROW STORY. 
One spring, recently, a pair of robins tried 
vainly to build a nest in a tree in front of 
our home; but the English sparrows constant¬ 
ly tore the nest to pieces. I drove them away 
every morning, noon and night, until the rob¬ 
ins had built what would have made two com¬ 
plete nests. Seeing the driving was not effec¬ 
tive, I resorted to shooting such sparrows as 
came within two feet of the nest. Twenty- 
eight such sparrows were secured. 
One very vicious fellow always brought in 
a new flock to assist him, so I grew to know 
him well. He and his mate had a nest across 
the street under the eaves of the house. Every 
morning following 1 arose early to try to cap¬ 
ture him. He, however, was too sharp for me, 
so my attention was directed to his helpmate. 
Their nest had been made and their eggs laid 
when I destroyed her. This however, did not 
discourage the male bird, for inside of half 
an hour, before the eggs could have become 
cold, he had secured a second mate. 
Next morning I shot this female, and he 
again procured another. As the days went on 
this was repeated from time to time. When 
the ninth one had been secured, a blue jay 
came along, wandered up to the nest, pulled 
out the four tiny sparrows and threw them to 
the ground where he expected to eat them 
later. The raspy voiced old male sparrow, in 
his excitement over the blue jay, forgot to 
watch me, and my little rifle brought him 
down from his perch. 
It is surprising that the death of this ‘‘old 
buck” as I called him, who had been the lead¬ 
ing spirit among the many vicious sparrows 
in the neighborhood, took the spirit out of the 
entire flock and they all seemed to avoid our 
vicinity for the rest of the summer. 
To me the lesson learned was that to abate 
the sparrow nuisance one need shoot only 
those with the black patch upon their throats. 
Therefore you can more readily drive the spar¬ 
rows away by destroying the males than the 
females. 
0. B. Zimmerman. 
Pays Fine for Killing Feathered Songsters. 
Sheboygan, Wis., May 19.—Because he shot 
three little summer birds, John Gottsacker, 
28 years old, was arrested and fined $5, with 
$5 costs, by Judge Gibling. Humane Agent 
Hoehne made the arrest.—Milwaukee Daily 
News. 
