Page:Bird-lore Vol 01.djvu/174

the care of cats or dogs, yet how few mothers or teachers take pains to teach the right care of these commoa animals, which are to be found everywhere, and are dependent on man for their happiness. A child will not discriminate between the bird bred in a cage and the bird taken from the mother's nest for the purpose of being brought up in a cage, and while birds are given as pets to children, not only the traffic in canaries is encouraged, but the snaring, or the capturing by other means, of our own song birds will continue. It stems to me there is but one lesson to teach children in relation to birds, — that they were made to be free, and to have space to use the wings that surely cannot have proper exercise even in the confined space of a house. Let those who already have birds take good care of them, by all means ; give them the right food and plenty of fresh water, and as much freedom as possible in the limits of the house ; but let those who are true bird-lovers discourage the traffic in birds in every way possible, no matter how hopeless it may seem just now to endeavor to put a stop to it, for the influence of every individual counts. Anna Harris Smith. To THE Editor of Bird-Lore. Dear Sir: — In the main Mrs. Miller's statement of the case is the one that I have come to adopt. In fact, my prejudices against the practice of caging birds were entirely banished and the whole subject revealed in a new light by reading Mrs. Miller's 'Bird Ways.' Such wonderful possibilities of bird happiness, child culture and edu- cation, and bird study were opened up by this little book that, from being opposed to caged birds, I was converted to believe that the cage might be made one of the most important factors in the great new field of bird study, and, I hope, actual bird culture, which seems to be dawning before us. The subject has a number of ethical bearings which Mrs. Miller does not touch upon, two of which I may point out. First: We may not only have a "right" to confine a bird, but it may become a duty which we owe not only to the bird itself, but to the community as well. The moment before beginning to write this a young Robin was sitting warmly in my hand gulping down earth- worms and blackberries. He is now sleeping quietly in a cage by my side. I picked him up this noon on the ground under the nest, unable to fly, and I love to think of him safe and cosy instead of fluttering in the jaws of some miscreant cat. Some days ago a boy came and told me that a neighbor's wife had taken a young Robin away from her cat "and put it on top of the shed" (to fall down into the cat's mouth again). At my request he brought the bird, but