Bird Day; How to prepare for it

by Charles Almanzo Babcock

The petition which was instrumental in getting the Massachusetts law passed, prohibiting the wearing of song and insectivorous birds on women's hats, was written by Senator Hoar. The petition read as follows:—

To the Great and General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts: We, the song birds of Massachusetts and their playfellows, make this our humble petition. We know more about you than you think we do. We know how good you are. We have hopped about the roofs and looked in at your windows of the houses you have built for poor and sick and hungry people, and little lame and deaf and blind children. We have built our nests in the trees and sung many a song as we flew about the gardens and parks you have made so beautiful for your children, especially your poor children to play in. Every year we fly a great way over the country, keeping all the time where the sun is bright and warm. And we know that whenever you do anything the other people all over this great land between the seas and the Great Lakes find it out, and pretty soon will try to do the same. We know. We know.

We are Americans just the same as you are. Some of us, like you, came across the great sea. But most of the birds like us have lived here a long while; and the birds like us welcomed your fathers when they came here many, many years ago. Our fathers and mothers have always done their best to please your fathers and mothers.

Now we have a sad story to tell you. Thoughtless or bad people are trying to destroy us. They kill us because our feathers are beautiful. Even pretty and sweet girls, who we should think would be our best friends, kill our brothers and children so that they may wear our plumage on their hats. Sometimes people kill us for mere wantonness. Cruel boys destroy our nests and steal our eggs and our young ones. People with guns and snares lie in wait to kill us; as if the place for a bird were not in the sky, alive, but in a shop window or in a glass case. If this goes on much longer all our song birds will be gone. Already we are told in some other countries that used to be full of birds, they are now almost gone. Even the nightingales are being killed in Italy.

Now we humbly pray that you will stop all this and will save us from this sad fate. You have already made a law that no one shall kill a harmless song bird or destroy our nests or our eggs. Will you please make another one that no one shall wear our feathers, so that no one shall kill us to get them? We want them all ourselves. Your pretty girls are pretty enough without them. We are told that it is as easy for you to do it as for a blackbird to whistle.

If you will, we know how to pay you a hundred times over. We will teach your children to keep themselves clean and neat. We will show them how to live together in peace and love and to agree as we do in our nests. We will build pretty houses which you will like to see. We will play about your garden and flower beds—ourselves like flowers on wings, without any cost to you. We will destroy the wicked insects and worms that spoil your cherries and currants and plums and apples and roses. We will give you our best songs, and make the spring more beautiful and the summer sweeter to you. Every June morning when you go out into the field, oriole and bluebird and blackbird and bobolink will fly after you and make the day more delightful to you. And when you go home tired after sundown, vesper sparrow will tell you how grateful we are. When you sit down on your porch after dark, fifebird and hermit thrush and wood thrush will sing to you; and even whip-poor-will will cheer you up a little. We know where we are safe. In a little while all the birds will come to live in Massachusetts again, and everybody who loves music will like to make a summer home with you.

The signers are:—

Brown Thrasher,
Robert o' Lincoln,
Hermit Thrush,
Vesper Sparrow,
Robin Redbreast,
Song Sparrow,
Scarlet Tanager,
Summer Redbird,
Blue Heron,
Humming Bird,
Yellowbird,
Whip-poor-will,
Water Wagtail,
Woodpecker,
Pigeon Woodpecker,
Indigo Bird,
Yellowthroat,
Wilson's Thrush,
Chickadee,
Kingbird,
Swallow,
Cedar Bird,
Cowbird,
Martin,
Veery,
Chewink,
Vireo,
Oriole,
Blackbird,
Fifebird,
Wren,
Linnet,
Pewee,
Phœbe,
Yoke Bird,
Lark,
Sandpiper.

It should be noted that the result of this petition was the passage of a law by the Legislature of Massachusetts forbidding the wearing of parts of wild birds. A bill forbidding the transportation of feathers or the skins of birds from one state to another was also introduced by Senator Hoar in the United States Senate.

2. At this first exercise it would be well to have read "Our New Neighbors at Ponkapog," by T. B. Aldrich.