Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 68

California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Bird Day is also more or less regularly observed, though not legally provided for, in New York, Indiana, Colorado and Alabama, and locally in some cities of Pennsylvania. Usually the observance of the day is combined with that of Arbor Day, and the date is fixed by proclamation of the Governor.

Alabama and Wisconsin regularly issue elaborate and beautiful Arbor and Bird Day annuals; and Illinois, and possibly other states, have issued very good publications of this character.

THE PHILLIPS EDUCATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR THE BIRDS.--Quite recently there has come under my notice an episode in the education of school children that has given the public profound satisfaction. I cite it here as an object lesson for pan-America.

In Carrick, Pennsylvania, just across the Monongahela River from the city of Pittsburgh, lives John M. Phillips, State Game Commissioner, nature-lover, sportsman and friend of man. He is a man who does things, and gets results. Goat Mountain Park (450 square miles), in British Columbia, to-day owes its existence to him, for without his initiative and labor it would not have been established. It was the first game preserve of British Columbia.

Three years ago, Mr. Phillips became deeply impressed by the idea that one of the best ways in the world to protect the wild life, both of to-day and the future, would be in teaching school children to love it and protect it. His fertile brain and open check-book soon devised a method for his home city. His theory was that by giving the children _something to do_, not only in protecting but in actually _bringing back_ the birds, much might be accomplished.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BIRD DAY AT CARRICK, PA.

Marching Behind the Governor]

In studying the subject of bringing back the birds, he found that the Russian mulberry is one of the finest trees in the world as a purveyor of good fruit for many kinds of birds. The tree does not much resemble our native mulberry, but is equally beautiful and interesting. "The fruit is not a long berry, nor is it of a purple color, but it grows from buds on the limbs and twigs something after the manner of the p.u.s.s.y-willow. It is smaller, of light color and has a very distinct flavor. The most striking peculiarity about the fruit is that it keeps on ripening during two months or more, new berries appearing daily while others are ripening. This is why it is such good bird food. Nor is it half bad for folks, for the berries are good to look at and to eat, either with cream or without, and to make pies that will set any sane boy's mouth a-watering at sight."--(Erasmus Wilson).

Everyone knows the value of sweet cherries, both to birds and to children.

Mr. Phillips decided that he would give away several hundred bird boxes, and also several hundred sweet cherry and Russian mulberry trees. The first gift distribution was made in the early spring of 1909. Another followed in 1910, but the last one was the most notable.

On April 11, 1912, Carrick had a great and glorious Bird Day. Mr.

Phillips was the author of it, and Governor Tener the finisher. On that day occurred the third annual gift distribution of raw materials designed to promote in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of 2,000 children a love for birds and an active desire to protect and increase them. Mr. Phillips gave away 500 bird boxes, 500 sweet cherry trees and 200 mulberry trees. The sun shone brightly, 500 flags waved in Carrick, the Governor made one of the best speeches of his life, and Erasmus Wilson, faithful friend of the birds, wrote this good story of the occasion for the _Gazette-Times_ of Pittsburgh:

The Governor was there, and the children, the bird-boxes, and the young trees. And was there ever a brighter or more fitting day for a children and bird jubilee! The scene was so inspiring that Gov.

Tener made one of the best speeches of his life.

The distribution of several hundred cherry and mulberry trees was the occasion, and the beautiful grounds of the Roosevelt school, Carrick, was the scene.

Mr. John M. Phillips, sane sportsman and enthusiastic friend of the birds, has been looking forward to this as the culmination of a scheme he has been working on for years, and he was more than pleased with the outcome. The intense delight it afforded him more than repaid him for all it has cost in all the years past.

But it was impossible to tell who were the more delighted,--he, or the Governor, or the children, or the visitors who were so fortunate as to be present. County Superintendent of Schools Samuel Hamilton was simply a ma.s.s of delight. And how could he be otherwise, surrounded as he was by 2,000 and more children fairly quivering with delight?

Children will care for and defend things that are their very own, fight for them and stand guard over them. Realizing this Mr.

Phillips undertook to show them how they could have birds all their own. Being clever in devising schemes for achieving things most to be desired, he began giving out bird-boxes to those who would agree to put them up, and to watch and defend the birds when they came to make their homes with them. And he found that no more faithful sentinel ever stood on guard than the boy who had a bird-house all his own.

Here was the solution to the vexed problem. Provide boxes for those who would agree to put them up, care for the birds, and study their habits and needs. The children agreed at once, and the birds did not object, so Mr. Phillips had some hundreds, four or five, blue-bird and wren boxes constructed during the past winter. These were pa.s.sed out some weeks ago to any boys or girls who would present an order signed by their parents, and countersigned by the princ.i.p.al of the school.

He knows enough about a boy to know that he does not prize the things that come without effort, nor will he become deeply interested in anything for which he is not held more or less responsible. Hence the advantage in having him write an order, have it indorsed by his parents, and vouched for by his school princ.i.p.al.

That he had struck the right scheme was proven by the avidity with which the girls and boys rushed for the boxes. The fact that a heavy rain was falling did not dampen their ardor for a moment, nor did the fact that they were tramping Mr. Phillips' beautiful lawn into a field of mud.

Mr. Phillips, seeing the necessity of providing food for the prospective hosts of birds, and wis.h.i.+ng to place the responsibility on the boys and girls, offered to provide a cherry tree or mulberry tree for every box erected, provided they should be properly planted and diligently cared for.

This was practically the culmination of the most unique bird scheme ever attempted, and yesterday was the day set apart for the distribution of these hundreds of fruit trees, the products of which are to be divided share and share alike with the birds.

Nowhere else has such a scheme been attempted, and never before has there been just such a day of jubilee. The intense interest manifested by the children, and the earnest enthusiasm manifested, leaves no doubt about their carrying out their part of the contract.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DISTRIBUTING BIRD BOXES AND FRUIT TREES]

Up to date (1912) Mr. Phillips has given away about 1,000 bird boxes, 1,500 cherry and Russian mulberry trees, and transformed the schools of Carrick into seething ma.s.ses of children militantly enthusiastic in the protection of birds, and in providing them with homes and food. As a final coup, Mr. Phillips has induced the city of Pittsburgh to create the office of City Ornithologist, at a salary of $1200 per year. The duty of the new officer is to protect all birds in the city from all kinds of molestation, especially when nesting; to erect bird-houses, provide food for wild birds, on a large scale, and report annually upon the increase or decrease of feathered residents and visitors. Mr.

Frederic S. Webster, long known as a naturalist and practical ornithologist, has been appointed to the position, and is now on active duty.

So far as we are aware, Pittsburgh is the first city to create the office of City Ornithologist. It is a happy thought; it will yield good results, and other cities will follow Pittsburgh's good example.

CHAPTER XLII

THE ETHICS OF SPORTSMANs.h.i.+P

I count it as rather strange that American and English sportsmen have hunted and shot for a century, and until 1908 formulated practically nothing to establish and define the ethics of shooting game. Here and there, a few unwritten principles have been evolved, and have become fixed by common consent; but the total number of these is very few.

Perhaps this has been for the reason that every free and independent sportsman prefers to be a law unto himself. Is it not doubly strange, however, that even down to the present year the term "sportsmen" never has been defined by a sportsman!

Forty years ago, a sportsman might have been defined, according to the standards of that period, as a man who hunts wild game for pleasure.

Those were the days wherein no one foresaw the wholesale annihilation of species, and there were no wilderness game preserves. In those days, gentlemen shot female hoofed game, trapped bears if they felt like it, killed ten times as much big game as they could use, and no one made any fuss whatever about the waste or extermination of wild life.

Those were the days of ox-teams and broad-axes. To-day, we are living in a totally different world,--a world of grinding, crunching, pulverizing progress, a world of annihilation of the works of Nature. And what is a sportsman to-day?

A SPORTSMAN is a man who loves Nature, and who in the enjoyment of the outdoor life and exploration takes a reasonable toll of Nature's wild animals, but not for commercial profit, and only so long as his hunting does not promote the extermination of species.

In view of the disappearance of wild life all over the habitable globe, and the steady extermination of species, the ethics of sportsmans.h.i.+p has become a matter of tremendous importance. If a man can shoot the last living Burch.e.l.l zebra, or p.r.o.ng-horned antelope, and be a sportsman and a gentleman, then we may just as well drop down all bars, and say no more about the ethics of shooting game.

But the real gentlemen-sportsmen of the world are not insensible to the duties of the hour in regard to the taking or not taking of game. The time has come when canon laws should be laid down, of world-wide application, and so thoroughly accepted and promulgated that their binding force can not be ignored. Among other things, it is time for a list of species to be published which no man claiming to be either a gentleman or a sportsman can shoot for aught else than preservation in a public museum. Of course, this list would be composed of the species that are threatened with extermination. Of American animals it should include the p.r.o.ng-horned antelope, Mexican mountain sheep, all the mountain sheep and goats in the United States, the California grizzly bear, mule deer, West Indian seal and California elephant seal and walrus.

In Africa that list should include the eland, white rhinoceros, blessbok, bontebok, kudu, giraffes and southern elephants, sable antelope, rhinoceros south of the Zambesi, leucoryx antelope and whale-headed stork. In Asia it should include the great Indian rhinoceros and its allied species, the burrhel, the Nilgiri tahr and the gayal. The David deer of Manchuria already is extinct in a wild state.

In Australia the interdiction should include the thylacine or Tasmanian wolf, all the large kangaroos, the emu, lyre bird and the mallee-bird.

Think what it would mean to the species named above if all the sportsmen of the world would unite in their defense, both actively and pa.s.sively!

It would be to those species a modus vivendi worth while.

Prior to 1908, no effort (so far as we are aware) ever had been made to promote the establishment of a comprehensive and up-to-date code of ethics for sportsmen who shoot. A few clubs of men who are hunters of big game had expressed in their const.i.tutions a few brief principles for the purpose of standardizing their own respective members.h.i.+ps, but that was all. I have not taken pains to make a general canva.s.s of sportsmen's clubs to ascertain what rules have been laid down by any large number of organizations.

The Boone and Crockett Club, of New York and Was.h.i.+ngton, had in its const.i.tution the following excellent article:

"Article X. The use of steel traps, the making of large bags, the killing of game while swimming in water, or helpless in deep snow, and the unnecessary killing of females or young of any species of ruminant, shall be deemed offenses. Any member who shall commit such offenses may be suspended, or expelled from the Club by unanimous vote of the Executive Committee."

In 1906, this Club condemned the use of automatic shotguns in hunting as unsportsmanlike.

The Lewis and Clark Club, of Pittsburgh, has in its const.i.tution, as Section 3 of Article 3, the following comprehensive principle:

"The term 'legitimate sport' means not only the observance of local laws, but excludes all methods of taking game other than by fair stalking or still hunting."

At the end of the const.i.tution of this club is this declaration, and admonition:

"_Purchase and sale of Trophies_.--As the purchase of heads and horns establishes a market value, and encourages Indians and others to "shoot for sale," often in violation of local laws and always to the detriment of the protection of game for legitimate sport, the Lewis and Clark Club condemns the purchase or the sale of the heads or horns of any game."