How does the value of the birds skin as an ornament of dress or of the dwelling, or as a scientific specimen compare with its value as a living creature? As an ornament it may be a thing of beauty, or a hideous caricature. Even as a thing of beauty it could not be made more so than the living bird. No one will be willing to declare that the quill, or the wing, or the skin is necessary to the bonnet. Many of us honestly think that the bonnet would look far better without either. As a scientific specimen the skin will serve some purposes, some legitimate purposes, which the living bird will not. The living bird cannot be fully understood without a careful study of its structure any more than a living man can. Unfortunately, birds which die a natural death cannot be found while their bodies are fit to study, if found at all. But happily, the number of dead birds necessary for study is limited. Even for scientific purposes there is no possible excuse for indiscriminate slaughter. Collecting should be left to those and those only who know what is needed and are content with enough. In these days of large collections and advanced knowledge, it is the rare exception when the dead bird will be more useful than the living one. These exceptions do not affect the right of the bird to live. Boys who begin to study birds have a passion for making a collection of the eggs. Eggs are beautiful things, and they look well in a cabinet properly arranged. But all of the eggs which most boys would be likely to, find are already well known, so that a study of the eggs in the nest and of the young birds will teach him far more that we really need to know about the birds. The greater good is not to make a collection of birds eggs.

What shall we say about the birds right to liberty? Clearly the bird at liberty to perform the part which Nature intended for him can fully accomplish that part only when at liberty to go his own way. But it would be idle to declare that the caged bird is in nowise useful to the world. There are some things which can be learned about birds only from caged ones.

If a bird be caged for the purpose of learning these things the very few that will be needed for this purpose will be fulfilling a high good, and if given their freedom again when the lessons have been learned the harm, if there be any, will be fully repaid. But here, again, the caged bird will be the rare exception and so does not affect the right of the average bird to liberty.

We then have only to inquire whether the bird has a right to the pursuit of happiness. No one who has studied the living bird with anything like an appreciation of it will think of denying that birds are creatures of intense life, capable of strong feeling and keen enjoyment. They speak out their feelings in song and action. It is really their human attributes which makes them appeal so strongly to us. We know that they are capable of love and hate, of joy and sorrow, of pleasure and pain. In them we recognize the heroic attribute of martyrdom. In order, therefore, to determine what the attitude of the bird would likely be were his right to the pursuit of happiness denied, we have only to ask what our own attitude would be under the same circumstances. If our happiness should be threatened in this place we would certainly go where it would not be. The birds do the same. But we have already seen that the birds have a right to life and liberty on account of the services they render to the world. If we deny them the right of happiness they will not be able to perform their service for us. Under persecution they cannot do their best, even if they remain to do anything for us. Persistent persecution will either drive them away or destroy them altogether. Since we cannot do without their services even for a single year, it is clear that we must agree that they do have the natural right to the pursuit of happiness.

We are ready, then, to concede to the birds as natural rights what we long ago declared were the natural rights of mankind, — "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." We might properly discuss the question; What do we owe to the birds? but that is a separate topic for a later time.