K
Conservative , 11
1IIRD BAY.
boguu to
that greatest reforms can come through
the medium of the public school. From
year to year new subjects are added to
the school curriculum. Alcohol and
tobacco will meet most resistance from
the disciples of the public school , and
the time is at hand when social and civic
reforms must needs seek the same
medium.
The designs and purposes of Arbor
Day are accomplished by troops of happy
and intelligent school children in Amer
ica. Not a holiday but a tree-planting
day , is the true spirit. And now the
condition and needs of our civilization
suggest still another line of culture and
a day for concentration upon the sub
ject. Bird Day , which was first ob
served in Oil Oity , Peun. , May 4 , 1894 ,
has received encouragement from the
generous founder of Arbor Day , and ,
indeed one who has so deeply realized
as he , the necessity of protection of trees
would not overlook their feathered
habitants.
The public school will find Bird Day
a nucleus for intensely interesting facts
and for the healthiest jesthetic culture.
Laying aside all poetic fancies , and
meeting man on his own selfishly human
grounds , of what use are the birds to
man ? The insectivorous birds might
proudly assert that without them , man
could not thrive upon this earth. And
the facts of the case would bear them
out. We are told by Professor Bruner
that three-fourths of the food of birds
consist of iusects. Supposing that each
bird in Nebraska eats 25 insects , it
would require more than a million in
sects for a single day's rations during
one of our summer days. All iusects
seem to have their special feathered
enemy that if unrestricted could spare
the farmer the arduous task of spraying
the trees. Think of a bird like the
woodohuck that eats its weight of in
sects in a single day or the merry little
chickadee that devoured 5,660 eggs of
the canker-worm moth in a single day.
To the hawks and owls wo look for a
diminution in field mice and vermin.
The migratory birds bring us seeds from
other lands.
Audubon , that naturalist whose ad
ventures in this region every child should
hear about , says that 415 species am
sub-species visit this state , 227 breec
< hero , and more than one hundred are
winter residents.
What condition in bird life prevails
today ? An enormous decrease. A few
of the almost self-evident reasons are
Clearing of forests , draining of swampy
places , cultivation of land , hat-trimming
and egg collecting.
The reasons for Bird Day are clearly
stated in the following letter written by
Ex-Secretary of Agriculture J. Sterling
Morton :
WASHINGTON , D. O. , April 28 , 1894.
Mr. O. A. Babcock , Supt. of Schools ,
Oil Oity , Pa.
Dear Sir : Your proposition to estab-
ish a "Bird Day" on the same general
plan as "Arbor Day" has my cordial
approval.
Such a movement can hardly fail to
n-omoto the development of a healthy
mblio sentiment toward our native
) irds , favoring their preservation and
ncrease. If directed toward this end ,
and not to the encouragement of the
importation of foreign species , it is sure
o meet the approval of the American
> eople.
It is a melancholy fact that among the
enemies of our birds two of the most
destructive and relentless are our women
and our boys. The love of feather
ornamentation so heartlessly persisted
u by thousands of women , and the
mania for collecting eggs and killing
birds so deeply rooted in our boys , are
egacies of barbarism inherited from our
savage ancestry. The number of
leautiful and useful birds annually
slaughtered for bonnet trimmings runs
up into the hundreds of thousands and
threatens , if it has not already accom
plished , the extermination of some of
the rarer species. The insidious egg-
hunting and pea-shooting proclivities of
; he small boy are hardly less widespread
and destructive. It matters little which
of the two agencies is the more fatal
since neither is productive of any good.
One looks to the gratification of a shal
low vanity , the other to the gratification
of a cruel instinct and an expenditure of
boyish energy that might be profitably
diverted into other channels. The evil
is one against which legislation can be
only palliative and of local efficiency.
Public sentiment , on the other hand , if
properly fostered in the schools , would
gain force with the growth and develop
ment of our boys and girls and would
become a hundred-fold more potent than
any law enacted by the state or con
gress. I believe such a sentiment can
be developed , so strong and so universal
that a respectable woman will be
ashamed to be seen with the wing of a
wild bird on her bonnet , and an honest
boy will be ashamed to own that he ever
robbed a nest or wantonly took the life
of a bird.
Birds are of inestimable value to man
kind. Without their unremitting ser
vices our gardens and fields would be
laid waste by insect pests. But we owe
them a greater debt even than this , for
the study of birds tends to develop some
of the best attributes and impulses oi
our natures. Among them we fine
examples of generosity , unselfish devo
tion , of the love of mother for offspring
and other estimable qualities. Thei
industry , patience and ingenuity excite
our admiration. ; their songs inspire u
with a love of music and poetry ; thei
beautiful plumages and graceful man
ners appeal to our aesthetic sense ; their
oug migrations to distant lands stimu-
ate our imaginations and tempt us to
nquire into the causes of these periodic
movements , and finally , the endless
nodifications of forms and habits by
which they are enabled to live under the
most diverse conditions of food and
limate on laud and sea invite the
tudent of nature into inexhaustible
fields of pleasurable research.
The cause of bird protection is one
hat appeals to the best side of our
latures. Let us yield to the appeal.
Let us have a Bird Day a day set apart
from all the other days of the year to
tell the children about the birds. But
we must not stop here. We should
strive continually to develop and in-
; ensify the sentiment of bird protection ,
not alone for the sake of preserving the
birds , but also for the sake of replacing ,
as far as possible , the barbaric impulses
uherent in child nature by the nobler
mpnlses and aspirations that should
characterize advanced civilization.
J. STERLING MORTON ,
Secretary of Agriculture.
The following list of books offers some
interesting matter on the subject of
jirds :
1. First Book of Birds. Miller.
2. In Nesting Time. Miller.
8. Bird Ways. Miller.
4. My Saturday Bird Class. Miller.
5. In Bird Land. Keyser.
6. Birds in the Bush. Torrey.
7. Birds Through an Opera Glass.
Merriam.
8. Our Birds in Their Haunts.
Langille.
9. Homes Without Hands. Wood.
10. New England Bird Life. Coues.
11. Nests and Eggs of North Ameri
can Birds.
12. Birds of North America. Law
rence.
Nearly every boy has his ideal of
manliness , and with many , kindness tea
a bird or dumb creature is a sign of
weakness. Stories are needed to illus
trate that the "strongest are the tender-
est. " Emperor Charles of Germany left
his tent pitched that a swallow's nest
might not be disturbed. Abraham Lin
coln , when riding across the country
with a party of young lawyers , turned
back for a distance of several miles to
rescue a bird that had fallen from its
nest. General Ouster turned aside his
entire detachment that the nest of a bird
in the arid plains might bo spared.
LOUISE W. MEARS.
The Sheldon epidemic
SHELDON
EPIDEMIC. demic is spreading.
The mayor of
Moundsville , West Virginia , says he is
going to run the town as Jesus would.
It is to be hoped that the contagion will
soon strike Kentucky. But there is
little prospect for it as the numerous
colonels would doubtless have to be told
not only what Christ would do but who
He was.
