The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-04-21
Written for the Waterman,
Do Women Love Birds.

A thoughtful woman, if at all in
formed of the wonderful way birds are
fashioned, so that they can easily fly to
countries beyond our hopes and heights
above our vision-who notes their skill
in building their little dwellings, and
their untiring care for their children,
and above all, who enjoys their songs
must love and admire our birds. The
adjoining of her apparel with one of
these exquisite creatures would seem
to deny that she does. What country
woman among us, tired out with the
washing and baking and sewing and
the everlasting work of existence, as
she stepped out of doors to hang out
the clothes, or get some water, or bring
in the eggs, or get something from the
garden for dinner, has not been rested
and heartened by robins 1" cheer up"
in the apple-tree, or bluebird's song
coming from a swaying elm bough high
overhead, or a bobolink's laughing
greeting from the meadow? There is
no more beautiful sight in spring than
that of an oriole flashing in and out of
the white pear blossoms-a cleaning
spot Of heartening sunshine-or a-tilt
on tree-top, pouring out a soulful
melody. 1t is heartsickening to think
of its untimely death, its dead skin
stuffed with wire and cotton, its bright,
pleading eyes replaced with glass beads,
its beautiful plumage sewed in place,
fastened to some lady's bonnet. In
mine, a scalp-lock would be just as good.
Last summer there were not half the
bright-plumaged birds nesting in our
trees as in former years. Many of our
finest ems looked sickly, and in August
were brown aud leafless. eaten by
worms while yet alive. How sorely
they missed the worm-eating birds that
should have nested in their pendant
branches and fed their young with in
sect pests. Last winter l missed, as /
miss absent friends, the chickadees
from the window ledge and from the
lilacs, and am told by those who know
that one may wander for hours upon
our wooded bills and not see one of
these sweet, tiny beings; nor did | see
single snow-bunting, our usual win
ter guest from the Arctic regions. What
stories he has told us of these desolate
wastes - about the EsquimauX, the
white bear and the wolves, with whom
he is well acquainted. These birds are
all demanded by fashion. What a
loathsome goddess to require such
slaughter of the innocents to appease
her. 1t is not alone the birds of our Yer
mont fields and woods that are slain by
thousands each year for millinery uses,
but those of the marshes and the sea, and
the beautiful tropical birds. How soon
will the race of birds become extinct if
this merciless destruction is not
stopped? AT one public sale of skins there
were sold more than forty-four thousand
of the green Amazon parrot. Two hun
bred fifty thousand humming birds are
annually exported. One taXidermist
alone handles annually thirty thousand
bird-skins. One New York woman is
filling contract with Paris millinery
firm for forty thousand skins of gulls,
sea-swallows and terms. Herons and
white egrets are killed by thousands
for the sake of their plumes. What
take in adjoining herself at the cost of
so many joyous, useful lives-lives
that cheer and comfort by their pres
ence so many human beings? That
song-bird we missed most likely is
sewed to a lady's bonnet that, perhaps,
mods approvingly at some inspiring
music III an Opera-lnuSlC no more
thrilling than bluebird's song from a
fence-post by our doors, or, may be, it
is bowed in token of prayer to that
great Being who suffers not even a
sparrow to fall to the ground without
his notice. The destruction of our ma
tive birds is not carried on to any
alarming extent in this state, for Yer
mont has good law for the protection
of her insectiverous birds that imposes
a fine of $40 on any person who will
fully kills one or who molests its nest.
This law should also fine a person fol
having in possession, for other than
scientific purposes, the dead body OF
such bird. Our birds are killed in
immense numbers when they are gath
cred together for flight to and from
their winter homes. Wherever the
murderous work is done it will continue
to find killer and taxidermist and mil.
liner to supply the demand, if this afro
cious fashion continues to call for such
supply. | believe it is through thought,
lessness and ignorance, more thar
from want of feeling, that so many
women follow this fashion. Hence il
is very desirable that newspapers
those great educators-should com
bine to spread information on this sub
iect, and that every wise and humane
person should speak boldly about this
detestable fashion. A.