THE BIRD PETITION
Before the year 1897 I had become very much alarmed at the
prospect of the total extinction of our song-birds. The
Bobolink seemed to be disappearing from the field in Massachusetts,
the beautiful Summer Red Bird had become extinct, and the
Oriole and the Scarlet Tanager had almost disappeared. Many
varieties of songbirds which were familiar to my own boyhood
were unknown to my children. The same thing seems to be going
on in other countries. The famous Italian novelist, Ouida,
contributed an article in the _North American Review_ a few
years ago in which she described the extermination of the
Nightingale in Italy. The Director of the Central Park, in
one of his Reports, stated that within fifteen or twenty years
the song-birds of the State of New York had diminished forty-
five per cent.
One afternoon in the spring of 1897, Governor Claflin called
on me at my Committee Room in the Capitol and told me a lady
had just visited his daughter at her rooms who had on her
head eleven egrets. These egrets are said to come from the
female White Heron, a beautiful bird abounding in Florida.
They are a sort of bridal ornament, growing out on the head
of the female at pairing time and perishing and dropping off
after the brood is reared. So the ornament on the horrible
woman's head had cost the lives of eleven of these beautiful
birds and very likely in every case the lives of a brood of
young ones.
When I went home I sat down after dinner and wrote with a
pencil the following petition.
_"To the Great and General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:
"We, the song-birds of Massachusetts and their playfellows,
make this our humble petition:_
"We know more about you than you think we do. We know how
good you are. We have hopped about the roofs and looked in
at the windows of the homes you have built for poor and sick
and hungry people and little lame and deaf and blind children.
We have built our nests in the tress and sung many a song
as we flew about the gardens and parks you have made so beautiful
for your own children, especially your poor children, to play
in.
"Every year we fly a great way over the country, keeping
all the time where the sun is bright and warm; and we know
that whenever you do anything, other people all over the
great land between the seas and the great lakes find it out,
and pretty soon will try to do the same thing. We know;
we know. We are Americans just as you are. Some of us,
like some of you, came from across the great sea, but most
of the birds like us have lived here a long while; and birds
like us welcomed your fathers when they came here many years
ago. Our fathers and mothers have always done their best
to please your fathers and mothers.
"Now we have a sad story to tell you. Thoughtless or bad
people are trying to destroy us. They kill us because our
feathers are beautiful. Even pretty and sweet girls, who
we should think would be our best friends, kill our brothers
and children so that they may wear plumage on their hats.
Sometimes people kill us from mere wantonness. Cruel boys
destroy our nests and steal our eggs and our young ones. People
with guns and snares lie in wait to kill us, as if the place
for a bird were not in the sky, alive, but in a shop window
or under a glass case. If this goes on much longer, all your
song-birds will be gone. Already, we are told, in some other
countries that used to be full of birds, they are almost gone.
Even the nightingales are being all killed in Italy.
"Now we humbly pray that you will stop all this, and will
save us from this sad fate. You have already made a law
that no one shall kill a harmless song-bird or destroy our
nests or our eggs. Will you please to make another that no
one shall wear our feathers, so that no one will kill us to get
them? We want them all ourselves. Your pretty girls are
pretty enough without them. We are told that it is as easy
for you to do it as for Blackbird to whistle.
"If you will, we know how to pay you a hundred times over.
We will teach your children to keep themselves clean and neat.
We will show them how to live together in peace and love and
to agree as we do in our nests. We will build pretty houses
which you will like to see. We will play about your gardens
and flower-beds,--ourselves like flowers on wings,--without
any cost to you. We will destroy the wicked insects and worms
that spoil your cherries and currants and plums and apples
and roses. We will give you our best songs and make the spring
more beautiful and the summer sweeter to you. Every June
morning when you go out to the field, Oriole and Blackbird
and Bobolink will fly after you and make the day more delightful
to you; and when you go home tired at sundown, Vesper Sparrow
will tell you how grateful we are. When you sit on your porch
after dark, Fife Bird and Hermit Thrush and Wood Thrush will
sing to you; and even Whip-poor-will will cheer up a little.
We know where we are safe. In a little while all the birds
will come to live in Massachusetts again, and everybody who
loves music will like to make a summer home with you."
I thought it might, perhaps, strike the Legislature of Massachusetts
and the public more impressively than a sober argument. The
whole thing took only fifteen or twenty minutes. The petition
was signed by all the song-birds of Massachusetts, and illustrated
by Miss Ellen Day Hale with the portraits of the signers.
It was presented to the Massachusetts Senate by the Honorable
A. S. Roe, Senator from the Worcester District. The Legislature
acted upon it and passed the following Statute:
"Whoever has in his possession the body of feathers of any
bird whose taking or killing is prohibited by section four
of chapter two hundred and seventy-six of the acts of the
year eighteen hundred and eighty-six, or wears such feathers
for the purpose of dress or ornament, shall be punished as
provided in said section: _provided_ that his act shall not
be construed to prohibit persons having the certificate provided
for in said sections from taking or killing such birds; and
_provided, further,_ that this act shall not apply to Natural
History Associations, or to the proprietors of museums, or
other collections for scientific purposes.
_"Approved June 11, 1897."_
The Statute was copied in several other States. I think
the petition helped a good deal the healthy reaction which,
owing largely to the efforts of humane societies and Natural
History Associations and especially of some very accomplished
ladies, has arrested the destruction of these beautiful ornaments
of our woods and fields and gardens, "our fellow pilgrims
on the journey of life," who have so much of humanity in them
and who, like us, have their appointed tasks set to them by
the great Creator.