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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. 18/3 
VOL. XV 
OCTOBER, 1913 
No. 2 
JUST JBIRD TALK 
H. L. Skavlem 
“A bit of old Pasture.”— 
. “A disreputable bit you say? Well 
perhaps from a thrifty farmer’s point 
of view. But this particular bit is not 
selected for utilitarian purposes; but 
for its color, its wildness and way¬ 
wardness, for its vagrant beckoning to 
feet weary with useful plodding.” 
This is the introduction to a bit of 
charming word painting by Prank TI. 
Sweet, in the August number of “Out¬ 
ers’ Book”. I would gladly yield my 
space in the Wayside for its reprint— 
indeed, I am “almost persuaded” to 
request its appearance in some future 
issue of your little magazine. 
To any true bird lover and nature 
student that olie little sketch of the 
; “Old Pasture” is worth more than the 
| price of “Outers’ Book” for a year. 
Now understand me: I say, any true 
bird lover and right here be it under¬ 
stood that I bar from this title all 
those who everlastingly chatter about 
| the “utilitarian” and “economic” 
value of this, that and the other kind 
of a bird,—now that I have the floor 
I’m going to “speak right out in 
meetin’ ”. 
The average utilitarian and economic 
arguments in favor oi bird protection 
are fifty per cent nonsense, twenty-five 
per cent wild guesses, and perhaps the 
most of the balance selfevident truths 
that require no arguments. Isn’t it 
about time that we let up on pickling 
the stomachs of wrens and swallows, 
sparrows and woodpeckers—crows, 
hawks and even owls, that our scien¬ 
tific economic ornithologists may give 
us crazy-quilt tabulated statements of 
grasshopper legs and snout-beetle 
heads,—pigeon grass and blackberry 
seeds with a generous sprinkling of 
buckwheat, barley, oats, and wheat, 
if the “collecting” has been done at 
that season of the year when these 
grains have become palatable to the 
birds. 
We have enough silly assertions and 
half-baked theories on the money value 
of bird life to last us for generations 
to come. I would not write a word 
nor whisper a syllable that I thought 
would in any way blunt our apprecia¬ 
tion of bird life, or tend to a false es¬ 
timate of their value to man, but this 
penny valuation of a bird by the sup¬ 
posed—and often glaringly unreliable 
—estimates of the quantities of various 
seeds or the number of bugs and 
creeping things—good, bad or indiffer- 
