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Introductory — Part 3

How many people who live in the country throughout the summer months, or even country folk themselves, have ever seen the rose-breasted grosbeak, a common and most gayly coloured summer resident? Or the yellow-breasted chat, or the Maryland yellowthroat, or the indigo-bird? Even these flashing bits of animated colour are generally unknown, while the less conspicuous birds, if seen at all, are called "sparrows" or "small birds."

Now that the public schools are taking up nature studies, we have good reason to hope that people will learn more about the birds. I think any woman who had seen a mother-thrush on the nest, with her anxious, wild, little eyes looking out in fear of the intruder, could never again wear a stuffed bird as a hat ornament, to be used for a short month or two and then thrown away. For herein lies, perhaps, the chief cause of the partial extermination of our birds, both those that are sombre in colour (for they can be dyed to any desired shade) and those that are by nature of brilliant hues. And who gains by this cruel sacrifice to a heartless fashion save the dealers?

Keeping native song-birds in captivity is forbidden in some States, the idea being, of course, to protect the birds. But this law undoubtedly does harm as well as good, for many people are thus prevented from becoming intimately attached to the common birds. Who, having once owned a bluebird, could injure one in any way or take its eggs? And the same applies to almost any other species. Then, again, children would become fond of such birds as they knew, and the cruelty displayed by some boys would be a thing undreamed of. In England, where I understand the song-birds are not protected by law, they are more abundant than anywhere else. What boy would kill an English robin--the robin redbreast--that he hears about in the earliest nursery rhymes and stories? He has been brought up to know and care for it, and it is therefore to be reckoned as one of his friends. Here the robin, were it not protected by law, would be shot off for food purposes, and I think this comes largely from the fact that the bird, like all the other birds, is not known really intimately, and therefore not cared for. Only last summer an instance attracted my attention of the utter barbarism that exists among some boys in this connection. I had noticed a robin's nest containing eggs, and being anxious to obtain certain notes in connection with the young, I visited it again three days later. What I saw made me fairly sick at heart. The parent bird was hanging from a branch--dead. Some boy had fastened a fish-hook baited with a worm to the branch above the nest. The poor bird had swallowed the hook and had hung there to die a slow, lingering death by starvation. The young had also starved to death. Such cruelty seems almost incredible; yet it was done by a boy supposed to be of average intelligence, who was being educated at a good school.

Keeping pet birds is a much discussed question, but after all my experience I have no reason to believe that they are necessarily unhappy in captivity. Some of my birds have been out for a fly many times, but they always seem glad to return, and I am sure they enjoy themselves, even when in their cages. Of course they receive every care and are allowed a good deal of freedom; they have no cares, no trouble to search for food or shelter, and they are nearly always well, and to all appearances happy. The whole question is, of course, one that each person must decide for himself, but unless there is a great deal of certainty in one's mind it is surely better to give the birds the benefit of the doubt--and their freedom. One aspect of the case has been put acutely by a poet who loved birds and sympathised with them very fully. He says of his mocking-bird:

"We have sometimes discussed the question: Is it better on the whole that Bob should have lived in a cage than in the wild wood? There are conflicting opinions about it: but one of us is clear that it is. He argues that although there are many songs which are never heard, as there are many eggs which never hatch, yet the general end of a song is to be heard, as that of an egg is to be hatched. He further argues that Bob's life in his cage has been one long blessing to several people who stood in need of him: whereas in the woods, leaving aside the probability of hawks and bad boys, he would not have been likely to gain one appreciative listener for a single half-hour out of each year," and so on.