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Birds and All Nature, Vol. V, No 2 February 1899

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<h2>THE HELPLESS.</h2> ELANORA KINSLEY MARBLE. <div> <ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_a.jpg" width-obs="58" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div> AS the nesting-season of our feathered friends approaches the mind naturally reverts to the grief in store for so many of them. Notwithstanding the efforts of the several Audubon societies, the humane journals, and in rare instances earnest pleas from the pulpit, fashion decrees that the wearing of bird plumage, and the birds themselves, is still de rigueur among women. The past season, certainly, showed no diminution of this barbarous fashion—a humiliating thing to record—and so the beautiful creatures will continue to be slaughtered, not by hundreds or thousands, but by millions upon millions, all for the gratification of woman's vanity and a senseless love of display. Alas, that the "fair" sex in whom the quality of mercy is supposed to exist in a high degree, should still wear above their serene brows—often bowed in worship—the badge of inhumanity and heartlessness. That mothers who have experienced all the pangs as well as joys of motherhood can aid in breaking up thousands of woodland homes by wearing the plumage which makes the slaughter of these birds one of commercial value and necessity. Soon accounts will be published of the fabulous sums to be gained by the heron hunters, and in order to supply the demand for the filmy, delicate aigrette to adorn my lady's bonnet, the nesting colony of these snowy egrets will be visited by the plume-hunters and the work of slaughter begin. Love and anxiety for their nestlings will render them heedless of danger, and through all the days of carnage which follow, not one parent bird will desert its nest. Fortunately the birds are instantly killed by the bullet, else, stripped of the coveted plumes they will be thrown in a heap, there slowly to die within sight and hearing of their starving, pleading little ones. These have no value for the plume-hunter, and so off he goes with his spoil, leaving thousands of orphaned nestlings to a painful, lingering death. And all this for a plume, which, in these days of enlightenment marks the wearer either as a person of little education, or totally lacking in refinement of feeling. It is trite to say that motherhood no more than womanhood necessarily implies refinement in the individual, but surely in the former, one would, in the nature of things, expect to find engendered a feeling of tender pity for any helpless animal and its offspring. It is this phase of the question which particularly appeals to people in whom love, as well as compassion for all helpless creatures is strong, not a sentiment newly awakened, or adopted as a fad. That genuine love for animals is inherent and not a matter of education the close observer, I think, will admit. Not that a child cannot be brought to recognize, when caught in any act of cruelty to some defenseless creature, the wanton wickedness of his act, but that no amount of suasion can influence him to treat it with kindness for love's sake rather than from the abstract moral reason that it is right. How can this love for animals exist in a child who has never known the joy of possessing a household pet? In whose presence an intrusive dog or cat is ever met with a blow, or angry command to "get out?" When somebody's lost pet comes whining at the door, piteously pleading for a kindly pat, and a morsel to eat, and is greeted with a kick, or possibly a bullet, under the pretense that the exhausted, panting little animal might go mad? How can a child who has witnessed these things view a suffering animal with any other feeling but calm indifference, or a brutal desire to inflict upon it additional pain? In his estimation every dog is subject to rabies, and every cat infested with fleas. Paternal apathy in this direction may, to some extent, be remedied by the child's instructors, especially in the kindergarten, where the foundation of character is supposed to be laid. But [Pg 73] even there the teacher will fail in arousing a feeling of compassion in a naturally cruel child's mind, unless her own sympathies are genuine, and not assumed for the time or place. Here more than anywhere else, it seems to me, intelligence, if not love, should prompt the teacher to familiarize herself with the treatment necessary not only to the well-being but to the happiness of the little captives held for the purpose of nature-study in her class. As spring opens, thousands of would-be naturalists, stimulated by nature-study in schools, will, no doubt, begin their universal search for birds' eggs, not from any particular interest in science, but as they collect stamps or marbles, simply to see how many they can get. In this way millions of birds are destroyed with no thought beyond the transitory triumph and pleasure of getting them. This egg-collecting should not be encouraged by the teachers. On the contrary every boy should be told that a true naturalist does not slaughter animals, or rob birds' nests promiscuously; that he is the first to remonstrate against wanton waste of life; that he does not take eggs of common birds at all, and never empties a nest unless of a rare bird, and sometimes not always then. These arguments will prevail among a few who have the real naturalist's instinct, but to the many who either do not know, or do not care, about the cruelty they inflict upon the parent birds in thus robbing them of their treasures, another appeal must be made. Picture the family life of the innocent little creatures—a lesson indeed to people of larger growth; how they guard their nests with almost human care and wisdom, and how they cherish their young with as faithful and self-sacrificing love as parents of human families. Impress upon their young minds how many days of toil the mother-bird, aided by her mate, spent in building the nest which they purpose to rifle, of her joy and pride when the first egg was deposited, and all the patiently borne days of brooding which followed. Surely a boy not wholly depraved would be moved by such a recital, and thus thousands of birds be saved, and through their influence, protected. In this way, too, might not the whole question of slaughtering birds for millinery purposes be solved, for what mother or sister could turn a deaf ear to the reproaches of a child, or to pleadings from young lips for more humane treatment of their feathered friends? That the small boy is not without wit, and quick to perceive the difference between precept and practice, the following anecdote, I think, will aptly prove: She was smartly dressed, and when she met one of her scholars bearing off a nest in which were five pretty little speckled eggs, she did not hesitate to stop him. "You are a wicked boy," she exclaimed indignantly. "How could you rob the birds of their nest? No doubt, at this very minute, the poor mother is hovering about the tree grieving for the loss of the eggs which you carry." "Oh, she don't care," replied the urchin, edging off with a derisive smile, "she's on your hat." <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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