Page:Oklahoma Arbor and Bird Day, Friday, March Twelfth, 1909.pdf/38

36 preparation. The children brought their pet birds and the building rang the bird music all day long."

The same year our own Prof. Bruner of the University of Nebraska urged the idea of Bird Day in the schools. He said, "We should have a Bird Day, just as we have a Flag Day or an Arbor Day, when suitable exercises should be held." About this time the Department of Agriculture issued a circular on Bird Day in the schools, warmly urging the idea on the teachers and superintendents throughout the country.

From far away New Mexico, from California, Florida and Pennsylvania, and even from Boston came reports of successful Bird Day celebrations.

In our own state the day has been observed in a quiet way in several places. A number of cities and villages and more country schools have had successful Bird Days and are planning others.

A special program is the usual method of bringing the birds before the pupils. These programs consist of lists of birds seen in the vicinity, observations on their habits, pictures of their nests and eggs, notes on their value and abundance and talks about their protection with a few choice poems of bits of literature given as recitations. In some schools a quarter holiday is given when the pupils are expected to give their time to walks in the woods and fields, watching the actions and learning of these feathered friends.

The Nebraska Ornithologist's Union was organized in 1900 for the purpose of encouraging the study of the birds in the schools and heartily approves of the idea of Bird Day.

The observance of the day is becoming more general every year and during the coming year a number of schools are expecting to have their first Bird Day. The movement is encouraged by the Audubon Societies and Clubs for the protection of our native birds because they realize the need of juts such work as is accomplished by Bird Day. It is hard to see why the time should be far distant when Bird Day will be as well known and as generally observed as any other special day."—Wilson Tout, Dunbar, Neb.

The purpose of the Audubon Society is too well understood to need reiteration. This article is to set forth some of its methods, especially such as apply to schools. It is particularly important that the work of the Audubon Society be brought before the pupils of the schools, because not only is that the time of life when impressions are strongest and when tendencies develop, but also every boy may, through a lack of proper training, be a very destructive enemy of bird life. We hope to see the time when parents will consider a spyglass a better present for their son than an air gun.

Largely through the efforts of the Audubon Society, there is hardly a state in the Union but has some stringent laws for the protection of birds. But it is not enough to stop the destruction of birds. Let us also work for the encouragement of bird life. The destruction of forests has taken away the natural building places of many species. Almost every housebuilder insists upon keeping one or more semi-domesticated,