The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1915-02-06
ENCOURAGE THE BIRDS
WHAT A KANSAS CITY MAN HAS
DONE TO MAKE HIS COM
MUNITY A BIRD Sane
TUARY.


would be unneighborly. Instead,
they offer sanctuary to the whole
twittering race, and not a feather
falls but they delegate some member
of their family to find out why.
An imaginative writer once tried
to describe a world without birds.
He failed. The awful silence and de-
preston of it were indescribable.
1t occurred to j. G.. Nichols, in
charge of the development of the
Country Club district, one day to
wonder what a world without birds
would be like. He had long noticed
what a rendezvous the district was
for singing birds, and, with the reac-
ton against the thought of a birdless
world, came the impulse to invite
still more TO make their homes there
to make it a haven for birds by
giving them protection and food.
Beginning at home, he made bird
houses for his children out OF cigar
boxes. Squirrel houses were made
too, and so quickly did furred and
%feathered families come to inhabit
them that the place was a center of
interest. Mr.. Nichols noticed a ma
terial increase in theenumber of birds
singing in his yard and his children
were deeply interested in the family
life of each pair that nested there.
His instinct for values in real es-
tate suggested to Mr.. Nichols that
the birds were not only a delight but
an asset. 1t furnished an excuse to
push the idea in a business way. The
push given a little over a year ago
has kept the movement going until
it has given 10 the Country Club dis
trict a bird population greater than
that of any other semisuburban dis
trict in Missouri-until il reached
Forest Hill gardens, New York city,
and populated them with singing
birds-until IL gave to Roland park,
Baltimore, and to st. Francis Wood,
San Francisco, more birds and bird
songs than any part OF New York or
Baltimore or San Francisco eve had
seen before.
This summer a bird census has
been taken In the Country Club dis
trict, and il has been found that all
the fifty common birds" OF the gov
eminent bulletin live there, and
many others besides.
Nichols Nationwide Campaign.
1t was not until his idea was adopt
ed by real estate promoters in other
large cities that Mr.. Nichols realized
that he had started a nationwide
campaign. This year inquiries have
come to him from a dozen different
cities, all anxious to have a bird sane
tuary, some of them ambitious to
make of their whole cities bird sane
tuaries. The information has been
gladly sent. To make a city a sane
tuary for birds Is to make it safe for
birds, just as the Yellowstone park
is a sanctuary for animals. Only
safety for birds in Kansas City is OBJ
tanned by creating public sentiment
in favor of birds. In every human is
a latent love for birds, and it re-
quires but a little stimulating to
bring it to the surface.
The Country club campaign has
been carried or purely on education
al grounds. Teachers of the William
Cullen Bryant and T.. c. White
schools cooperated heartily with the
originator of the plan 10 increase the
singing population by increasing To-
cal interest in them. Birds are the
kind of folks that improve on ac-
quaintance.
Field glasses and opera glasses
were requisitioned from sympathiz-
ing parents and schoolooys stationed
themselves where a red headed wood
pecker was likely to attack a worm
infested tree. For the first time In
their lives they saw at close range
the blood red feathers and noted the
fall of the "sawdust" as Mr.. Wood
pecker made the necessary incision.
They were reading up on the subject
at the time and so they knew the
exact moment when the long. narrow,
probing tongue shot out and wrested
the worm from its fancied security.
The teachers told them of the occa-
sional necessity of operations to a v
limbs, and they were able to appre-
ciate the surgical skill of the wood
pecker surgeon, who made a hole
in the tree and a small permanent
scar in order to save its life or per-
haps a limb. Then some were taught
a better way-that Nature, who is a
good doctor unless she is deprived OF
her instruments, uses the keen appe-
tite and keener bill of the red headed
woodpecker to dig out the gnawing
worm and free the tree of its dan
gerous inhabitant.
Many other interesting things were
taught the Country club school chill
dren about birds. Ralph Hoffman,
master of the County Club day school
is something of an ornithologist, and
he has been a constant source of in
spiration and information.
Ernest Harold Baynes, naturalist,
came from his bird sanctuary in New
Hampshire to lecture to the residents
Of the district. He told the already
awakened children and their parents
how to attract and keep the birds.
Starting with a mere p~urposeless
liking for birds and a wish TO inter
est his children in having them about
Mr.. Nichols found himself the leader
of a bird campaign that has touched
both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts
and that bids fair to involve in Its
enthusiasm every city between New
York and San Francisco. AT the core
ii is a business enterprise, pure and
simple. AS a means Of enhancing