OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE WISCONSIN, ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN AUDUBON SOCIETIES 
One Year 25 Cents Single Copy 5 Cents 
Published by the Wisconsin Audubon Society at Madison, Wisconsin 
Entered as second class matter August 23, 1909, at Madison, Wis., under the act of Congress of March 3, 1879 
VOIy. XII. FEBRUARY, 1911 NO. 8 
THE CONSERVATION OF BIRDS 
Professor Eliot Blackwelder 
To some persons conservation is a 
•fetich to he set up on an altar and wor¬ 
shipped. To others the very name is 
anathema, and the idea itself a foolish 
visionary doctrine subversive of the 
plain rights of man. To most of us it 
is and should he a simple matter of 
economy,—business principles applied 
to the great establishment of the nation 
as a whole, as distinct from its indi- 
vidual members. Let us suppose a man 
is left a fortune. If he preserves the 
principal, spends only a part of the in¬ 
come, and adds to the principal by the 
wise use of the remaining part, we say 
he is an intelligent, successful business 
man. If, on the other hand, he squan¬ 
ders all the income, and eats into the 
principal every year, he is a spend¬ 
thrift and it requires none of the quali¬ 
ties of the prophet to predict that he 
( 
will soon end in bankruptcy. 
I Collectively, as a nation, we possess 
many things; and among them are the 
birds which inhabit our country. Birds 
are perhaps not the most important of 
our resources, but since this paper is de¬ 
voted to their interests, they will receive 
special consideration in this article. 
Birds constitute a valuable asset on the 
ledger of any nation. The vast ma- 
| jority of wild birds are the allies of men 
in their battle against injurious insects. 
To be sure, they take their toll sometimes 
in fruit and grain, but we little appre¬ 
ciate how fully the majority of them 
repay us by their services. In times 
gone by certain varieties of birds have 
been an important source of food sup¬ 
ply for this and other nations. Through 
reckless waste we and our predecessors 
have largely squandered this resource, 
and yet it still remains a possession of 
some importance. Prom the third point 
of view, which in a commercial age has 
been generally overlooked, our wild 
birds are well worth preserving,—they 
add beauty and interest in large meas¬ 
ure to the forests, fields and mountains 
which we and our descendants must con¬ 
tinue to inhabit. To this third item it 
is our manifest duty to give much closer 
attention than we have in the past. 
There can be no justification morally for 
depriving future generations of those 
very things which have helped to give us 
pleasure and interest in life. 
There being no doubt that the vast 
majority of our birds are well worth pre¬ 
serving, the question must be raised: 
“Are we so managing this part of our 
national estate that it is not constantly 
deteriorating in value but, on the other 
hand, is increasing?” Any one con¬ 
versant with the facts will be obliged to 
reply at once in the negative. Within 
the past decade the once abundant pas¬ 
senger pigeon has become entirely ex- 
