f golden pheasants flying
about and making their nests there.

There are other kinds of pheasants in England and in some parts of
Europe, and these the people shoot and eat. But the golden pheasant is
much too beautiful to eat. His feathers are as lovely as the
sunset--gold and yellow and orange, with blue and deep crimson; and
all these colors are laid out on his feathers in such a beautiful
pattern that to look at him you would think you were dreaming, and not
looking at a real bird.

Man, who toils with his hands, cannot make such lovely colors as those
of the birds of the air, and of the flowers in the fields, which do
not toil.

_The Snowy Egret_

And now, my dear children, I shall finish this chapter by telling you
about a beautiful bird that once lived quite wild in great numbers in
the United States. This bird has lovely soft feathers, which are pure
white; so it is called the _snowy egret_. The feathers are as soft as
silk. They are also long, with a gentle droop at the end.

Because these feathers are so lovely, rich women want to wear them in
their hats; and these rich women are willing to pay a great deal of
money for the egret feathers. So, for the sake of the money, hunters
go wherever these lovely birds are to be found, and catch and kill
them, and get the feathers. In fact, they have killed off so many of
these lovely birds, to get feathers for rich women's hats, that to-day
there are hardly any snowy egrets left in the United States.

Worse than that, the hunters killed the Papa and Mamma egrets just
when their babies were born, because at that time the feathers of the
snowy egrets were the softest and loveliest. And so, for each Papa and
Mamma egret which the cruel hunters killed, they left a dozen _baby
birds in their nests to starve and die_. Think of that!

Now, my dear children, I want the little girls among you to remember
this, especially the little girls who are lucky enough to have rich
Papas and Mammas. You can grow up to be beautiful, and look beautiful,
without wearing these egret feathers. There are women who try to look
beautiful, but who do not think of the pain they give to God's
innocent creatures.

So, if ever you want to wear egret feathers, think of the dozen baby
egrets who must starve and die if you are to have them.

[Illustration: Snowy Egrets
Photograph of a group in the American Museum of Natural History, New York]

CHAPTER XVI

The Caged Parrot

I sh