The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-05-24
BIRDS OUR FRIENDS
SIZING MIGRATION, NOW AT
 HEIGHT, HEYDAY OF STUDENTS.
Uncle Sam's Scientists Find Few Feathered Undesirables---Protec tfon Against Hundreds of Millions Damage to Crops
 Each Year.

Providence. May 23--(Special.)- This week Is the heyday for nature
 lovers. for the annual migration oi
 birds Is at it's height now. It is the one time of the year whom the city man who takes au interest in the
 feathered inhabitants Of the earth is
 at least at no disadvantage with his
 rural cousin. Every park, every pus-
 He square, every back yard and attic window is point or observation. and
 even the most Inexperienced, untrained
 observer can see things more interest
 ing than IS told In the best advertised
 nature fakir's most daring flight of
 fancy.
 Birds are less familiar to most peo-
 pie than any other kind of living
 creature. probably. The reason is
 plain enough; except for the chattering
 English sparrow,,o an occasional rob :
 in redbreast the city dweller rarely
 sees them. and the country dweller
 regards some of them in the same
 category with weeds and others only
 as a part of the landscape. good
 many birds are of more use to hu-
 manity than a good many animals
 though, while as study they are in-
 flnitely more interesting by reason of their variety. their intelligence. and our unfamiliarity with them and their habits and occupations
 Uncle Sam began a systematic study of his feathered citizens twenty-three years ago. with the particular pur- pose of finding out which of them
 were to be classed as benefactors and which as undesirables. Tn ere had been so much complaint against the feathered folk that 1t seemed worth while to discover just how much of the poor crops was to be attributed to them and how much to the poli- ticians in power. So the department of agriculture organized a kind of se- cret service, calling upon all good cit- izens to give their aid in the detection of bird indicators. and for nearly a quarter of a century now the little people of the underbrush. the tree top and the free air have been spied upon and shadowed, their every movement reported, the amount and kind of food they eat scientifically tabulated, and ledger account of the harm they do and the good they accomplish has been kept, with some surprising re- suits.
 quir!ng a place among the popular sciences. Four of the important col leges and universities now provide rather extensive courses in ornithol gy and the rudiments of the science are being added to the nature work" of many of the public schools. It has been found in Brown University, here, where the study of birds has received particular attention. that the course in ornlthology Is one of the most popular and is considered by those who take it as one of the most in the department of exten- sion teaching, established a year or two ago to reach school teachers and | other busy people who had neither | time nor opportunity to enroll them | selves as regular students in the col | ege.
 The course at Brown consists in 1 ectures and in field excursions taken | sariy in the morning while the spring | migration is on. The birds place in | nature, the classification of birds, | heir anatomy their value to man. heir protection, and their habits and | are studied with a view not so mucS to making expert orni- h ologists of large number of peo- pie as of spreading more generally an | appreciation of birds and broadening | what is after all the most important | branch of any kind of education--the of the marvels of the world in which we live. For 1t is the heory at this university that each well instructed man or woman is a mis-