sad fate. You have always made a law that no one shall kill a
harmless song-bird or destroy our nests or our eggs. Will you please
make another one 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 a blackbird to whistle.

[Illustration:

No. 1. Hummingbird.
2. Whippoorwill.
3. Bobolink.
4. Scarlet Tanager.
5. Baltimore Oriole.
6. Song-Sparrow.]

"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 garden 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 into the field, oriole and bluebird and blackbird and bobolink
will fly after you and make the day more delightful to you. And when you
go home tired after sundown, vesper-sparrow will tell you how grateful
we are. When you sit down on your porch after dark, fifebird and
hermit-thrush and wood-thrush will sing to you, and even whippoorwill
will cheer you 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."

The signers are:

Brown thrasher, Kingbird,
Robert o' Lincoln, Swallow,
Hermit-thrush, Cedarbird,
Vesper-sparrow, Cowbird,
Robin redbreast, Martin,
Song-sparrow, Veery,
Scarlet tanager, Vireo,
Summer redbird, Oriole,
Blue heron, Blackbird,
Hummingbird, Fifebird,
Yellowbird, Wren,
Whippoorwill, Linnet,
Water-wagtail, Peewee,
Woodpecker, Phoebe,
Pigeon-woodpecker, Yokebird,
Indigo-bird, Lark,
Yellowthroat, Sandpiper,