LET
US ALL PROTECT THE EGGS OF THE BIRDS.
| ELIZABETH NUNEMACHER, in Our Animal
Friends, writes thus of her observation of birds. Would
that her suggestions for their protection might be
heeded. “Said that artists in literature, Thomas Wentworth Higginson: ‘I think that, if required, on pain of death to name instantly the most perfect thing in the universe, I would risk my fate on a bird’s egg; . . . it is as if a pearl opened and an angel sang.’ But far from his beautiful thought was the empty shell, the mere shell of the collector. How can he be a bird lover who, after rifling some carefully tended nest, pierces the two ends of one of these exquisite crusts of winged melody, and murderously blows one more atom of wings and song into nothingness? The inanimate shell, however lovely in color, what is it? It is not an egg; an egg comprehends the contents, the life within. Aside from the worthlessness of such a possession, each egg purloined means we know not what depth of grief to the parent, and a lost bird life; a vacuum where song should be. People who love birds and the study of them prefer half an hour’s personal experience with a single bird to a whole cabinet of “specimens.” Yet a scientist recently confessed that he had slain something like four hundred and seventy-five Redstarts, thus exterminating the entire species from a considerable range of country, to verify the fact of a slight variation in color. One would infinitely prefer to see one Redstart in the joy of life to all that scientific lore could impart regarding the entire family of Redstarts by such wholesale butchery, which nothing can excuse. |
We
hear complaints of the scarcity of Bluebirds from year to
year. I have watched, at intervals since early April, the
nest of a single pair of Bluebirds in an old apple tree.
On April 29th there were four young birds in the nest. On
May 4th they had flown; an addition was made to the
dwelling, and one egg of a second brood was deposited. On
May 31st the nest again held four young Bluebirds. June
15th saw this second quartette leave the apple tree for
the outer world, and thinking surely that the little
mother had done, I appropriated the nest; but on June
25th I found a second nest built, and one white egg,
promising a third brood. From the four laid this time,
either a collector or a Bluejay deducted one, and on July
14th the rest were just out of the shell. This instance
of the industry of one pair of Bluebirds proves that
their scarcity is no fault of theirs. I may add that the
gentle mother suffered my frequent visits and my meddling
with her nursery affairs without any show of anger or
excitement, uttering only soft murmurs, which indicated a
certain anxiety. May not the eleven young Bluebirds mean
a hundred next season, and is not the possessor of the
missing egg guilty of a dozen small lives?” We have observed that the enthusiasm of boys for collecting eggs is frequently inspired by licensed “collectors,” who are known in a community to possess many rare and valuable specimens. Too many nests are despoiled for so-called scientific purposes, and a limit should be set to the number of eggs that may be taken by any one for either private or public institutions. Let us influence the boys to “love the wood-rose, and leave it on its stalk.” |