"I don't know that," replied the boy-lark; "but of course it wasn't a real bird."
"It only shows," remarked the bobolink, "how greatly those humans admire us birds. They make pictures of us, and love to keep us in cages so they can hear us sing, and they even wear us in their bonnets after we are dead."
"I think that is a dreadful thing," said the goldfinch, with a shudder. "But it only proves that men are our greatest enemies."
"Don't forget the women," said Twinkle. "It's the women that wear birds in their hats."
"Mankind," said Robin Redbreast, gravely, "is the most destructive and bloodthirsty of all the brute creation. They not only kill for food, but through vanity and a desire for personal adornment. I have even heard it said that they kill for amusement, being unable to restrain their murderous desires. In this they are more cruel than the serpents."
"There is some excuse for the poor things," observed the Bluejay, "for nature created them dependent upon the animals and birds and fishes. Having neither fur nor feathers to protect their poor skinny bodies, they wear clothing made of the fleece of sheep, and skins of seals and beavers and otters and even the humble muskrats. They cover their feet and their hands with skins of beasts; they sleep upon the feathers of birds; their food is the flesh of beasts and birds and fishes. No created thing is so dependent upon others as man; therefore he is the greatest destroyer in the world. But he is not alone in his murderous, despoiling instinct. While you rail at man, my friends, do not forget that birds are themselves the greatest enemies of birds."
"Nonsense!" cried the magpie, indignantly.
"Perhaps the less you say about this matter the better," declared the bluejay, swinging his club in a suggestive manner, and looking sharply at the magpie.
"It's a slander," said the blackbird. "I'm sure you can't accuse me of injuring birds in any way."
"If you are all innocent, why are we obliged to have a policeman?" enquired the little wren, in a nervous voice.