the spring of 1897, Governor Claflin called
on me at my Committee Room in the Capitol and told me a lady
had just visited his daughter at her rooms who had on her
head eleven egrets. These egrets are said to come from the
female White Heron, a beautiful bird abounding in Florida.
They are a sort of bridal ornament, growing out on the head
of the female at pairing time and perishing and dropping off
after the brood is reared. So the ornament on the horrible
woman's head had cost the lives of eleven of these beautiful
birds and very likely in every case the lives of a brood of
young ones.

When I went home I sat down after dinner and wrote with a
pencil the following petition.

_"To the Great and General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:

"We, the song-birds of Massachusetts and their playfellows,
make this our humble petition:_

"We know more about you than you think we do. We know how
good you are. We have hopped about the roofs and looked in
at the windows of the homes you have built for poor and sick
and hungry people and little lame and deaf and blind children.
We have built our nests in the tress and sung many a song
as we flew about the gardens and parks you have made so beautiful
for your own children, especially your poor children, to play
in.

"Every year we fly a great way over the country, keeping
all the time where the sun is bright and warm; and we know
that whenever you do anything, other people all over the
great land between the seas and the great lakes find it out,
and pretty soon will try to do the same thing. We know;
we know. We are Americans just as you are. Some of us,
like some of you, came from across the great sea, but most
of the birds like us have lived here a long while; and birds
like us welcomed your fathers when they came here many years
ago. Our fathers and mothers have always done their best
to please your fathers and mothers.

"Now we have a sad story to tell you. Thoughtless or bad
people are trying to destroy us. They kill us because our
feathers are beautiful. Even pretty and sweet girls, who
we should think would be our best friends, kill our brothers
and children so that they may wear plumage on their hats.
Sometimes people kill us from mere wantonness. Cruel boys
destroy our nests and steal our eggs and our young ones. People
with guns and snares lie in wait to kill us, as if the place
for a bird were not in the sky, alive, but in a shop window
o