Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/708

690 may effectively protect our birds in general, so as to preserve them as far as is possible under present conditions.

Against the most important cause of the disappearance of birds, modern agriculture and the removal of the forests, special measures have been adopted with effect in some places, and more are needed. Among these are the plantation of sheltering woods, particularly in or near cities, in public parks, and on all estates, and of thickets in the open fields. These should contain abundant berry-bearing plants and thorny bushes, and might be thickly furnished with nest-boxes, such as are made at several German factories, after patterns indicated by Gloger, in six different numbers. An essential condition to the success of such bird-protectories is the suppression of all enemies of birds and of all disturbers of their nests, egg-collectors large and small. The weakest efforts in behalf of the birds have been those to protect them against unfavorable conditions of weather. Happily, excessive severities of weather, like hard hailstones and terrible thunderstorms, in which birds are numerously sacrificed, are comparatively rare. Lesser weather changes, while they are often not less dangerous to birds, we can more easily contend against. Certainly, any sincere lover of birds, even though he have only a garden or a small yard, or a balcony or a window, can set out food for the support of feathered guests in times of snow or hard frost. But perhaps only a few friends of birds think of the times when the weather conditions are really most unfavorable, and the care of them is most needed. In the late snows and sharp frosts of approaching spring, many of our feathered summer friends are exposed to great hardships, in which they need all the attention that their friends can give them.

The taste for having singing-birds in the house is so widespread and so deeply rooted in popular life that it would be hard to extirpate it. No intelligent man would underestimate its influence on the temper, or its educational, moral, and economical importance, and no well-wisher could desire its complete suppression. And it is demonstrable that bird-catching for the sake of this fancy hardly contributes materially to the diminution in the number of birds. It affects chiefly the males, which among native birds greatly outnumber the females; and when a hunter catches a male of almost any species, another will appear in a short time to fill its place. Egg-collectors, on the other hand, may inflict great damage; and the collector of the present time is not satisfied with one specimen, as formerly, but usually takes the whole laying.

The form of destruction most grievous to thoughtful and sensitive men is that which is pursued for the sake of woman's adornment. It seems hardly possible, at the first look, that an honorable woman, possessed of a delicate, moral, pure, and true