ng from the eggs of the beautiful bird couples. The father
and mother oriole and the father and mother bluebird, each pair vain and
prettily jubilant over what had happened, worked very hard to bring food
to the open mouths of their offspring. The young ones were growing and
flourishing, and they were all happy.

One day, in St. Clair County, Michigan, a man armed with a shotgun went
out into a clearing. The shot in the gun was of the kind known as
"mustard-seed." It is so fine that it will not mar the feathers of the
bird it kills. On the same day, possibly, or at least very nearly at the
same time, a man similarly armed strolled down beside a creek in Orange
County, Indiana. The man in Michigan wanted to kill the beautiful male
bluebird who was bringing food to his young ones. The man in Indiana
wanted to kill the magnificent male oriole who was feeding his young
birds in the nest. It was not difficult for either of these two brutes
to kill the two happy bird fathers. They were business-like butchers,
just of the type of man who make the dog-catchers in cities--and they
had no nerves and shot well. One of them took home a beautiful dead
oriole, and the other took not one but two beautiful bluebirds, for as
the male bluebird came back to the nest with food for the younglings, it
so chanced that the female came also, and the same charge of shot killed
them both.

"She isn't quite as purty as the he-bird," said the man, as he picked up
the two, "but maybe I can get a little something for her."

The man who shot the oriole would have gladly committed and profited by
a similar double murder had the mother bird happened upon the scene when
he shot her orange-and-black mate.

These two slayers, who carried shotguns loaded with "mustard-seed" shot,
went out after the beautiful birds, because from Chicago and New York
had come into their country certain men who represented great millinery
furnishing houses, and these men had left word with local dealers in the
country towns that they would pay money for the beautiful feathers of
bluebirds and orioles and other birds. The little local dealers were
promised a profit on all such spoils sent by them to the great city
dealers, and they had set the men with the shotguns at work. Mating time
and nesting time are the times for murdering birds, because at that
season not only is their plumage finest, but the birds are more easily
to be found and killed. It is then that they sing the