hes and a few other songsters
would be more appropriate than an orchestra. With thanks for
your cordial good wishes, I am,

Yours faithfully,

CLINTON SCOLLARD.

From the Department of Public Instruction of Pennsylvania this
encouraging letter was received:--

HARRISBURG, April 27, 1894.

SUPERINTENDENT C. A. BABCOCK.

_Dear Sir_,--In your plan to inaugurate a "Bird Day" you
have struck a capital idea. When in the name of agriculture
a scalp act can be passed resulting in a year and a half in
the payment of $75,000 by the county treasuries of
Pennsylvania for the destruction of birds that were
subsequently proved to belong to the feathered friends of
the farmer, it is high time to make our pupils acquainted
with the habits and ways of the feathered tribes. Some birds
remain with us the whole year, others are summer sojourners,
still others are only transient visitors. How much of the
beauty of our environment is lost by those who never listen
to the music of the birds and never see the richness of
their plumage!

May success attend you in carrying out your new idea of a
"Bird Day."

Very truly yours,

NATHAN C. SCHAEFFER,

_Superintendent of Public Instruction_.

Bradford Torrey gives an additional title to the day, showing his
appreciation of it:--

WELLESLEY HILLS, MASS., April 21, 1894.

_Dear Mr. Babcock_,--Your young people are to be
congratulated. "Bird Day" is something new to me--a new
saints' day in my calendar, so to speak. The thought is so
pleasing to me that I wish you had given me its date, so
that in spirit I might observe it with you. Tell your pupils
that to cultivate an acquaintance with things out of
doors--flowers, trees, rocks, but especially animate
creatures, and best of all, birds--is one of the surest ways
of laying up happiness for themselves; and laying up
happiness is even better than laying up money, though I am
so old-fashioned a body and so true a Yankee as to believe
in that also.

All the naturalists I have known have been men of sunny
temper. Let your boys and girls cultivate their eyes and
ears, and their hearts and minds as well, by the study of
living birds, their comings and goings, their songs and
their ways; let them learn to find out things for
themselves; to know the difference betwe