Peter Parley, boys and birds.

In 1838, the Genesee Farmer published this excerpt credited to Fireside Education remarking on the bird-killing ways of modern boys:

There is one trait in the character of our American boys which, I think, deserves to be checked; and that is the incessant war they carry on against familiar birds and the lesser quadrupeds. As soon as a boy can hurl a stone, he becomes a Nimrod, and goes forth as a mighty hunter against the blue bird; cat birds, swallows and robins, that venture into our gardens, orchards, and fields. Not even the little wren that comes with his fair offer of a dozen beautiful songs a day for the rent of some nook or cranny about the house, is safe from the whizzing missile. Not even the little sparrow, that would build beneath the window, is tolerated….And when the boy becomes a youth, the same exterminating war is carried on though with a different weapon. With the fowling piece in his hand, he roams the orchard and the field, slaughtering, without discrimination, jays, woodpeckers, sparrows, blackbirds, bob-o-links, and the rest of the feathered family.

This passage would be reprinted in other agricultural papers, including the New England Farmer (1839).

The special role of American boys in the destruction of national birdlife was a perennial theme in bird protection discussions. In this case, however, the passage came from a book on education credited to Peter Parley (AKA Samuel Griswold Goodrich), prolific children's author and publisher. The topic was "Mercy" (shades of Sarah Trimmer). 

Now, is not this all wrong? Does not this partake of cruelty? And, beside, is it not obvious folly? For my own part, I love to see the birds enlivening the landscape. The rigor of our climate drives them away for half the year, but I mourn when they are gone, and rejoice at their return.They are a great resource to those who will observe them. Their songs, however varied, are ever beautiful. Their forms, habits and capacities are themes of interesting study. It is delightful to see them building their nests, rearing their young, pursuing their food, and displaying their various musical gifts. Why, then, should we drive these creatures away? Some of them, it is true, are thieves, and take more cherries and corn than we are willing to spare them, and I approve of necessary scarecrows and suitable pelting in these cases. But why banish the whole feathered race, most of whom are not merely innocent, but absolutely useful in diminishing the number of noxious insects?

Note that the value of birds for Parley is not merely in their utility as insect checks, but in their music, beauty, interestingness, and the way they enliven the landscape. At the same time, they are not entirely innocents: thievery may be justly punished by "pelting." Parley claims that the situation is uniquely American.

It is not so in other countries. In England, birds generally are protected and cherished. I do not speak now of pheasants, partridges, and other game, which are sheltered in the parks, and preserved from all but his lordship's shot; but, throughout the whole country, the sparrows, bulfinches, goldfinches, thrushes, blackbirds, and other little songsters, are permitted to live almost without molestation. They are seen by hundreds in every hedge and field. Many of them are almost domesticated around the house; and even in the cities, such as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, London, and others, amid the smoke of coal, the din of factories, and the throng of people, you see thousands of these little birds. In the heart of an English city, I have sometimes waked up in the morning, and, from the bursting melody of finches and sparrows around, have imagined myself to be in the country.

Note that actual legal protection of birds throughout England wouldn't happen for decades. The putative contrast, however, allowed Parley to offer a remarkable, for its time (1838!), speculative explanation for American violence against birds:

Why is it that our custom in respect to birds is so different in America? Have we derived from our pilgrim fathers a spirit of extermination? Because the first settlers of this country cut away the forest, slaughtered the Indians, smote the bear and the bison, hunted down the panther and the wolf, have we derived from them a spirit of extirpation, which, now that the monsters of the forest are slain, is given up by men, but lives in our children, and vents itself on cat-birds and sparrows? I know not; but, be this as it may, I mourn over the solitude which is gradually gathering over the landscapes of New England, from the absence of the feathered songsters; and I mourn over that spirit of wanton cruelty which makes man the enemy, instead of the friend, of harmless birds. 

Parley was a bird-lover, publishing in 1832 the Book of Ornithology, for Youth, largely cribbed from Wilson, Audubon and European authors. He believed that the study of birds was an ideal topic for young learners. And birds play a role in his posthumous (1863) autobiography, Peter Parley's Own Story, even if the idyllic moments

I think an apple orchard in the spring is one of the most beautiful objects in the world. How often have I ventured into Uncle Josey's ample orchard at this joyous season, and stood entranced among the robins, blackbirds, woodpeckers, bluebirds, jays, and[45] orioles,—all seeming to me like playmates, racing, chasing, singing, rollicking, in the exuberance of their joy, or perchance shyly pursuing their courtships, or even more shyly building their nests and rearing their young.

are balanced with moments displaying more the "spirit of extirpation," as in his joy at netting dozens of wild (passenger) pigeons.

When at last, with a sudden pull of the rope, the net was sprung, and we went out to secure our booty—often fifty, and sometimes even a hundred birds—I felt a fulness of triumph which words are wholly inadequate to express!

Perhaps Parley-the-boy was a model of the American boy he would later write against. 

Agricola writes a poem about bird protection

Special to the New England Farmer (1838), this poem by "Agricola." It takes a while to get going.

The Birds

A poem, in metre free and easy 

O thou, who, story tellers say,
Taught old Triptolemus the way
To plough, and sow,
And reap, and mow,
The fields to beautify, and dress, and rig,
Just as a barber used to do the parson's wig;
To fall the forests, and the plains adorn
With herbage, and with wavy corn;
To speak in brief,
Bright mother of Ceres, of the golden sheaf,
Come, lend thy aid,
Else, I'm afraid,
I cannot, shall not, must not--"go ahead."
That's just enough of invocation:
I always hate a stuff'd oration,
The gods and goddesses to puff and daub:
I'll not, but others may perform the fulsome job.
Farmers, attend!
Poh! that's too blunt:--"I'll leave to amend,"
As lawyers say, when in a hobble,
And would an innuendo cobble.
Well then,
My most worthy gentlemen,
I've come to tell in fewest words
Something relating to the birds.
The birds I love,
E'en from the noble Eagle to the sweet Turtle-dove,
The Sparrow, Tomtit, and the twittering Wren.
Ay, and I would that truant boys and thoughtless men
Were not on murder bent,
Foul, barbarous intent,
Degrading all our nature
To a savage creature;
But yet, alas, how rife
This love of taking life!
Joyful sings the merry Lark to cheer his sitting mate,
Lest she should be disconsolate!
"I'm here, sweet Celia," is the tender strain;
And how it echoes o'er the blooming plain!
But hark! a shot!
The little warbler falls!
The cruel sportsman bawls,
And runs, exulting, to the fatal spot.
So caitiff, thou hast done the deed,
Hast caused a little bird to bleed,
The meanest feather of whose wing
Outweighs thy savage soul, thou brutal, barb'rous thing!
O, ye husbandmen and farmers,
Have ye no care, no thought for those little charmers,
That carol o'er your lawn,
From the first break of dawn,
"Discoursing music" tender, soft and sweet,
For ears in love with melody so meet?
Know ye not that birds protect your farms
From predatory millers, grubs, slugs and worms?
They are your friends indeed,
And, though upon your lands they feed,
Yes, gather daily, all their food,
It still is for your good.
So that well you might in truth,
As Boaz did for Ruth,
Order some gleamings of your bounteous fare,
Left purposely for birds to share.
Triptolemus, the husbandman of yore,
Of whom I spoke before,
He would no more
Allow a poaching rascal on his farm
The birds to harm,
Than he'd permit a knave to chouse
Him of his shield, or rob his house.
O, no; by bastinado or the knout
The rogue would soon repent of what he'd been about.
Farmers, then protect the feathered tribe:
I speak it, not intending jeer or gibe,
Soberly, sincerely,
Though you may think my verse runs queerly;
A very singular sort;--
Long pulls, and short;--
Somewhat like ploughing new ground, midst the stumps,
Now steady moving,--now by jerks and jumps.
Perhaps they'll say my muse
Wears tight shoes,
Or has great "corns upon her toes,"
And so she limping goes.
No matter, truth you'll often find
In verse of every sort and kind;
And you will have no squeamishness
About my manner of address.
Once more permit me just to day,
Save, Save the birds.--Mehercule!
Should e'er a popping loafer tread your grounds,
Let loose your hounds,
And chase the dastard villain from your utmost bounds. 

"Agricola" was the pen-name of John Young, an influential agriculturalist from Nova Scotia. It is not clear whether Young was the author of this poem.  He had passed away the previous year. It is possible, of course, that the poem was offered to the New England Farmer after his death. Young had been an honorary member of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society, an avid correspondent to newspapers on agricultural matters (his letters to the Acadian Recorder were collected in a popular book), and was known for his "oratorical" style. His Scottish roots would explain the use of British names for the bird species referenced in the poem. Whether Young himself, or a tribute to him, or just another writer making a Latin reference, it expresses well a certain stream of sentiment about bird protection (against "popping loafers") and even draws from classical tradition for support. (I have not found any classical references to bird protection connected to Triptolemus, Greek demi-god who taught Athenians how to farm, except for the fact that some traditions make him the son of Picus, famously turned into a woodpecker.)

This poem was reprinted in the Boston Musical Gazette, with the following, evocative, introduction:

At the late musical convention held in this city, in the course of debate, the cruel practice of hunting beast and bird, for the sake of sport, was alluded to, and the immoral tendency of music in praise of the chase; the following lines express the feelings of one who is decidedly opposed to the barbarous custom of bird-shooting, which has grown so fashionable. The music of the feathered tribes has nearly ceased. Where are those cheerful warblers? Alas, ask the heartless and cruel sportsman. 

The issue of bird protection had clearly slipped the bounds of the agricultural conversation. 

Cedar Birds Strike Again (Genesee Farmer 1837-1838)

The Cedar Waxwing, or as it was known at the time, "Cedar Bird," was widely considered an enemy of fruit-growing horticulturalists. We've already seen an extended "conversation" in the Genesee Farmer about whether farmers were justified destroying the bird. Five years later, the reports of depredations of the Cedar Bird in the same publication were accompanied by a call for a war of extermination:

Cedar Bird, (Bombycilla carolinensis of Nuttall), has this year repeated his visits in increased numbers, and with destructive effect to the early cherries and other sweet fruits of the season. It is but a few years since we first noticed this bird, and then only at considerable intervals; now it comes in flocks, and is one of the most annoying of birds. Unless some means of thinning its numbers, or preventing its attacks on the cherry and the raspberry--and as yet nothing but lead seems to have produced any effect--can be devised, the cultivation of the early sweet varieties, and of course some of the riches, must be abandoned….[E]very farmer should be…careful not to let old or young escape when…discovered, to plunder his fruit garden, or perpetuate the race. We are confident in this case the only remedy is a war of extermination, and partial as we are to the wild birds that come and go with the foliage of our groves, if the last cherry bird was in our possession, it would most assuredly go to the--cat.

The author went on to defend another species as unfairly persecuted: "the man who attempts to break up a colony of the cliff swallow, does not properly understand his interests, or adequately value the comfort of his domestic animals."

By 1838, however, the anti Cedar Bird position had softened. In a review of Robert Manning's Book of Fruit, a Genesee Farmer correspondent grudgingly accepted that there might be value in the bird after all. Like all cherry-growers, Manning had problems with the bird, but he advised the use of nets instead of gunshot, because the bird was actually useful. The author of the review extracted Manning's reasoning at length, believing that "if not sufficient to entitle it to protection, [it] should certainly receive attention, and not be lost sight of in horticultural economy."

In speaking as we have, of the annoyances sustained from birds, we are still fully persuaded that these plunderers, as they are sometimes called, more than compensate for their occasional inroads upon our orchards by their services in the spring, and also during their incubation, in destroying insects. We too often, perhaps notice the former, while the latter are remote, or not obtrusive....We have seen the Ampelis, or Cherry bird, that remarkably silent and dove-like[?]species, in great numbers early in spring, and also during the time of nidification upon our apple trees, when the canker worm was about half grown, destroying them in great numbers...'Public economy and utility,' says one, 'no less than humanity, plead for the protection of the feathered race; and the wanton destruction of birds, so useful, beautiful, and amusing, if not treated as such by the law, ought to be considered as a crime by every moral feeling and reflecting mind.'

The final quoted passage is from Nuttall, in his introduction to volume 1 of his Manual to the Ornithology of the United States. This is the first use I can find for it, but it will be key language in the bird protection movement to come. Manning, an influential horticultural authority, for one, was already on board. [Note: Manning was Nathaniel Hawthorne's uncle]

Augustus Gould and the protection of useful birds

In 1837 the New England Farmer reprinted a widely circulated letter, signed by Augustus A. Gould, and attached to the Massachusetts Geological survey, urging a full accounting of Massachusetts wildlife. The reason? That farmers might stop destroying useful species, particularly but not exclusively, birdlife. I've included the relevant passage in full below. Attentive readers of this blog will find much that is familiar.

Animals are destroyed, whose natural habits render their destruction of doubtful utility, such as crows, blackbirds, and woodpeckers. It is true that the crow pulls up the blade of corn for the sake of the kernel at its base. But then, he preserves a tenfold greater quantity from the inroad of the worms which he devours. “Why, then should the farmer be so ungrateful,” says Mr. Audubon, “when he sees such services rendered to him by a provident friend, as to persecute the friend, even to the death? When I know by experience the generosity of the people, I cannot but wish that they would reflect a little, and become more indulgent towards our poor, humble harmless, and even most serviceable bird, the crow.”  

History tells us, “that when Virginia, at enormous expense, had extirpated the little crow the inhabitants would have willingly bought then back again, at double the price, that they might devour insects” also, "that when the farmers of New England, by offering a reward of three pence per head on the crow-black-bird, had nearly exterminated them, insects increased to such a degree as to cause a total loss of the herbage; and the inhabitants were obliged to obtain their hay from Pennsylvania and other places.” 

No bird is more universally or unjustly persecuted than the wood-pecker, because of his supposed injury to our fruit and forest trees, when, in truth, he is doing no injury to the tree. He is furnished by a kind Providence with a bill capable of penetrating the bark, and a long barbed tongue to draw out the insects which are destroying the tree 

It is usual to stone the sparrow from our gardens, under the supposition that he picks up the seeds which we have deposited there, when he is really devouring nothing but the grubs and other insects, in which the rich garden earth abounds, and which are the real destroyers of the seeds. It has been calculated by observation, that a single sparrow, with young, devours 3,360 caterpillars in a week, or 480 per day.

Gould defends the common crow, and is the first figure that I can find that uses Audubon (Ornithological Biographies) for bird protection advocacy. Wilson, you may remember, was equivocal about the farmer's just relationship with crows.

The passage about Virginia and "little crows," as well as the story about New England and blackbirds that we've seen before, are usually attributed to Pehr (Peter) Kalm. Kalm, it should be noted, was not necessarily a defender of birds. In his 1770 Travels into North America he repeats received wisdom about crows ("noxious" maize thieves) and red-headed woodpeckers ("pernicious") and his telling of the New England blackbird story is more of an illustration of how hated the bird was than a morality tale about the balance of nature.  I've not been able to find the Virginia example in Travels itself. The source for the passage and the Kalm attribution seems to be Linnaeus himself, via Benjamin Stillingfleet's 1762 English adaptation of Linnaean writing, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Natural History, Husbandry, and Physick. Stillingfleet introduces the story with this succinct statement of the useful bird idea: "Wild beasts, and ravenous birds, though they seem to disturb our private economy are not without their uses; which we should be sensible of, if they were extirpated." Stillingfleet notes in support the practice of farmers in Suffolk and Norfolk to encourage the breed of rooks to control grubs.  (Given my inability to find the Virginia story elsewhere, I wonder if Stillingfleet/Linnaeus confused Virginia with New England and is actually just telling the blackbird story again....)

The final paragraph is a familiar retelling of Bradley's exercise in extrapolation, though a peculiarly sloppy one coming from an esteemed naturalist (Gould's expertise was mollusks, after all). House Sparrows had not yet been introduced to the United States, so the persecuted bird was probably
the completely harmless, and according to Forbush, extremely useful, Chipping Sparrow. Forbush reports one observer counting a single bird consuming "fifty-four cankerworms in one sitting." That would be 4536 caterpillars in a week using Bradley's formula.

Notes for a pre-history of bird feeding

I greatly appreciate the recent Feeding Wild Birds in America by Paul Baicich, Margaret Baker and Carol Henderson, but I will admit feeling a little frustrated that they begin their history in the late 1800s with the Audubon and Nature Study movements. Surely, as this still-incomplete blog project hopefully demonstrates, more than a century of interest in birds and bird-protection fueled those movements. That said, I know you have to begin your story somewhere and undoubtedly the popularization of suburban backyard bird feeding in America does flow from that time. So I'm content to offer some notes on a possible pre-history of bird feeding. (The pre-history provided in the book above is Thoreau tossing out corn for the animals in the late 1840s. Surely we can go earlier than that).

My thoughts went first to the crumb-loving Chipping Sparrow, a longtime favorite of the American door-stoop (before being pushed aside by the House Sparrow). And indeed, Alexander Wilson (1808) comments directly on the sociability that follows from the bird being tossed bread crumbs.

I have known one of these birds attend regularly every day, during a whole summer, while the family were at dinner, under a piazza, fronting the garden, and pick up the crumbs that were thrown to him. This sociable habit, which continues chiefly during the summer, is a singular characteristic.

Of interest: Wilson notes that "Snowbirds" (Juncos) are the winter crumb-loving equivalent of Chipping Sparrows, so much so that some people evidently thought that they were the same bird in different plumages.

The roots of American bird-feeding (as with bird protection) are ultimately in Europe. Robins are the great crumb-lovers, easily trained to visit front doors and dinner tables. In the 18th century, Gilbert White noted the love of Blue Tits for suet. And I found an article in a British publication from the 1840s describing a bird feeding set-up rather sophisticated for its time (though still regarded a curiosity).

A lady…amused herself in the winter…with throwing, several times a day, different kinds of seeds on the terrace below the window, in order to feed the birds in the neighborhood. These soon became accustomed to this distribution and arrived in crowds when they heard the clapping of hands, which was the signal used to call them. She put some hemp and cracked nuts even on the window-sill, and on a board, particularly for her favorites, the blue tits. [It was the Nuthatches that ultimately benefited the most].

Also circulating through publications of this era were accounts of an apparent Swedish Christmas-time custom of providing sparrows with a "sheaf of unthrashed corn" to prevent their starvation.

That the feeding of wild birds is a human practice of long standing, though, is best evidenced by the story of Walther von der Vogelweide, famed 13th century German lyric poet, whose will commanded that bird food be left on his tomb every day at noon. This story was told in verse by Longfellow in 1846.

Saying, "From these wandering minstrels
I have learned the art of song;
Let me now repay the lessons
They have taught so well and long" 

Thus the bard of love departed
And fulfilling his desire,
On his tomb the birds were feasted
By the children of the choir.

Note that the story ends ironically, with the "portly abbot" charged with setting out the food deciding that it is going to waste and better off turned into loaves of breads "for our fasting brotherhood."

To really understand the history of bird feeding, however, I think requires understanding the history of the capture and confinement of wild birds (the preferred way, when it was allowed, to get close to wild birds) and the taming of wild game birds, particularly ducks and geese, for domestication.