The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1921-04-11
LAKELAND EVENING TELEGRAM, MONDAY APRIL II, 1921

- - :
not survive the ravages of insect pests and
famine would face the world. There are many
kinds of birds yet found in Florida, more in the
southern part than anywhere else, with rookeries
populous with feathered creatures.
The Federal government has a dozen bird
reservations in the state a sixth of the entire
number in the Union, and that indicates we have
the birds here. The birds live together har-
moniously as average human beings. From the
rookeries and reservations and forest colonies
they fly off in daily search Of food in main part
of insects and weed seeds, and return to feed
their young; sometimes the mother returns with
a wound from gun and in pain awaits recovery,
and sometimes she does not return and the
young ngeringly and pitifully die in their nests.
What would woodlands be without the
fight of these winged policemen of the air in
their search for insects dangerous to man, and of
their songs? 1t must have been a knocking bird
of which Byron said:
"A light broke in upon my soul
1t was the carol of bird
II ceased-and then it came again,
The sweetest song ear ever heard"
Not long ago | boy with dead moclling
bird. He had shot it-a ten-cent boy with two
dollar air gun had killed winged miracle of
song. The father of that boy should have been
taken before judge and sentenced TO commit
TO memory Longfelows poem entitled Birds
and recite it later in court to his son:
"Do you neer think what wondrous beings these?
Do you neer think who made them and who
taught
The dialect they speak, where melodies
Alone are the interpreters OF thought?
Whose household words are songs in many keys
Whose babtations in the tree tops even
Are halfway houses on the road to heaven.
Think. every morning when the sun peeps
through
The DIM leaflattced windows of the grove.
How jubilant the happy birds renew
Their old. melodious madrigals Of love;
And when YOU think OF this, remcmbcr, too.
The awakening continents. from shore to slioT:
Somewhere the birds are singing eyermore'
The loss TO American agriculture b. insect
pests amounts yearly to more than 1900 ,00O.-
600. according to experts. II has been proved
that birds are the natural enemies of insect
pests and that if we had sufficient insectvorous
birds, the bug question would be settled.
Every fair-mipded man, woman and child
should. therefore, realize that the birds are a
should be done for their conservation. Instead,
many of us destroy the birds. and meanwhile the
nation spends millions for Insecticides and labor
to save crops, Birds are our feathered
friends.
Until recently women had a voice only in pub
lie affairs, but now they have Il vote and what
they propose to do from now on will be given
fuller consideration The Womens Club Fedora
ton of Florida is live organization, and among
resolutions just adopted is one reciting the fact
that forty-six states have game officials Florida
and Mississippi alone excepted; that Florida
with its mild climate, giving birds long season,
is in need of such an official that Florida is an
agricultural state and birds serve as check
as provided by nature upon insects so injuriou ;
to crops but with the present slaughter of wild
life, none will be left for coming generations
therefore the legislature is asked to provide such
state official, with authority to appoint county
wardens in numbers sufficient to enforce the law
so that the wild life of the state may be ade-
quately preserved and protected.
'.O;n,,l;,,60 l,,,moca