eason is too hot or too
cold, too wet or too dry, and then they do not appear in large numbers.

Sometimes one kind of insect eats another kind.

Sometimes tiny plants, like moulds, grow on the insects and kill them;
and birds destroy a very large number.

If the farmers only knew how much good the birds do them, they would
never allow one to be killed. Even the crows that pull up their corn are
worth many times the corn they eat in the insects they destroy. There is
scarcely a bird but what is of value to the farmer.

The hawks that catch his chickens catch more mice and moles in his
fields, than chickens in his barn-yard.

And as for the robins, the blue jays, and all the small birds, they do
more to save the growing plants, than all the soap suds and kerosene
emulsion that were ever made.

No one should ever shoot a bird. The birds are our natural protectors
against the vast armies of insects, that, but for the birds, would soon
destroy us by eating up our food plants.

What is that, May? You belong to an Audubon Society for the protection
of the birds?

Yes, I know you do, and so do John and Ned and Mollie and little Nell.

I wish every child in the United States belonged to the Audubon Society.
Then our birds would be safe. They would never be killed as they are now
for foolish women to wear on their hats.

When the Audubon Society children grew up they would not wear dead
birds, of course, and their children would be taught better, so that
after a while the Audubon Society people would be the only ones left,
and so the birds would be safe.

Let us get as many people to belong to the Audubon Society as we can.

What is that, Amy? You have learned more interesting things about birds
in the Audubon Society than you ever knew in your life before?

Yes, I am sure you have, and what could be lovelier to study about than
the birds.

What is that you are saying, Ned? You love to go bird hunting? Ah, I see
your eyes twinkle, sir; I know how you go hunting. You hunt with your
mother's opera glass! That is the proper way to hunt birds.

We can learn more from watching one bird with a glass than we could from
shooting a hundred.

But you do shoot them, John? Yes, I know about that, too. I know what
kind of a shooting instrument you got for Christmas, sir, and I have
seen the birds you shot!

Yes, nearly all of us have seen them, and how well he does it!

What, Amy, you think John ought to be ashamed of h