Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1899-12-28
A BIRD TALK.
The Common Birds Of tho Country
Not Decreasing in Number.


There is a reassuring Bird Talk"
by John Burroughs in the November
ST. Nicholas. One of the good signs
of the times, he says, is the interest
our young people are taking in the
birds, and the numerous clubs and So
cieties that are being formed through.
out the country for bird protection
and cultivation. In my youth but little
was heard about the birds. They were
looked upon as of little account. Many
of them were treated as the farmers
natural enemies. Crows and all kinds
of hawks and owls were destroyed
whenever chance offered. l knew a
farmer who every summer caught and
killed all the red-tailed hawks he
could. He stood up poles in his
meadows, upon the tops of which he
would set steel traps. The hawks,
looking for meadow mice, would alight
upon them and be caught. The farmer
was thus Staying his best friends, as
these large hawks live almost entirely
upon mice and vermin. The redtail
or hen-hawk is very wary of a man
with a gun, but he has not yet learned
of the danger that turks in steel trap
on the top of pole.
with our crows and hawks for a year,
it would be found at the end of that
time that most of them had balance
to their credit. That Is, they do US
more good than injury. A few Of them,
like the fish-crow and sharp-shinned
hawk, Coopers hawk and the duck
hawk, are destructive to the birds and
wild fowls; but the others live mainly
uDOn insects and Yermin
| do not share the alarm expressed
in some quarters over the seeming de-
crease in the number Of birds. People
are always more or less gloomy in re-
gard to the present and present
things. AS we grow older the number
of beautiful things in the world seems
to be fewer. THE Indian summer is
not what it used to be; the winters are
not so bracing; the spring is more un-
certain; and honest men are fewer"
But there is not much change after all.
The change Is mainly in us. | see no
decrease in the great body of our COM
mon field, orchard and wood birds.
do not see the cliff swallows I used to
see in my youth; they go farther
north, to northern New England and
Canada. At Rangeiey Lake, in Maine,
| saw the caves Of barn as crowded
with their mud nests as | used to see
the caves Of my fathers barns amid
the Catskills. In the cliffs along the
Yukon in Alaska they are said to
swarm in great numbers. Nearly all
our game-birds are decreasing in mum.
bers. because sportmen are more and
more numerous and skilful, and their
guns more and more deadly. The bob.
olinks are fewer than they were a de-
cade or two ago, because they are
slaughtered more and more in the
marshes and rice fields of the South.
The bluebirds and hermit-thrushes
were threatened with extinction by a
cold wave and a severe storm In the
Southern States a few years ago.
These birds appear to have been slain
by the hundred thousand. But they
are slowly recovering lost ground, and
in ten or more years will no doubt be
as numerous as ever. l see along the
Hudson River fewer eagles than
used to see fifteen years ago. The col
lectors and the rifemen are no doubt
responsible for this decrease. But the
robins, thrushes, finches. warblers,
blackbirds, orioles, fly-catchers, vireos
and woodpeckers are quite as abund-
ant as they were a quarter of q CEN
tury ago, il not more so.