The New England Farmer encourages citizen scientists (1852)

Under the associate editorship of Henry F. French (whose son Daniel would help to found the Nuttall Ornithological Club two decades later), bird-related articles appeared in the New England Farmer as never before.  Unlike previous editorial regimes, in which natural theology played a large role, French was devoted to science. In a February 1852 article in The Horticulturist, for example, he stressed the many things that "Science" could teach agriculturists, including:

She may teach us the history of birds--how industriously they co-operate with the husbandman in the destruction of myriads of insects, which, but for their aid, would over run his fields, and devour his harvests, thus teaching him to regard their song with pleasure, their presence as a blessing, instead of waging against them, as he did in less enlightened days, a cruel war of extermination. She tells us how the woodpecker, formerly regarded as a deadly enemy of the orchard, guided by an instinct alike unerring and wonderful, strikes her sharp beak through the bark, and drags with her barbed tongue, from his concealment, some worm which is slowly working his destructive way beneath. She tells us how the beautiful Oriole, so often regarded and destroyed by the market gardener, as an enemy of his peas, is only devouring the larvae of the pea-bug, which is already full grown in the green pea fit for the table, and would otherwise make part of some favorite customer's dinner, who, as likely as not, might fancy himself to be living on a strictly vegetable diet!

French, and his sympathetic if ornithologically inexpert editor-in-chief, Simon Brown, introduced bird-related topics to the Farmer's readers and actively encouraged them to write in with questions or submissions.

The topic of fall 1852 was swallows, specifically their departure and arrival dates. Swallows were a favorite ornithological topic during this era because there was still some lingering doubt about whether they migrated at all; there had been an ancient misconception that swallows hibernated, remaining in a torpid state in hollow trees or under the mud like frogs. Scientific observation had refuted folk wisdom in this case, and might in others. 

In the September issue a correspondent wrote in wondering if swallows in New Britain, Connecticut departed later than swallows in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. It depends on the variety of swallow, the editor (probably French) was quick to respond, asking the writer which of the "seven or eight" kinds of swallows he meant--barn swallow? or white bellied [tree] swallow? Regardless, the editor was pleased with the question, adding

We are happy to find that attention is turned to these lively and interesting birds. The farm is a perpetual museum [my emphasis], containing numberless specimens of the most beautiful creations. It ought not to remain sealed and unobserved to any.

A separate uncredited article purported to set the exact date barn swallows left Massachusetts and New Hampshire each year. Careful observation of staging swallows indicated it was July 27. This was in conflict with Nuttall, who indicated barn swallows left on September 18. The author justified the inclusion of this topic in the Farmer:

This whole matter of the birds is exceedingly interesting; and we believe it is as profitable to the farmer to know more of their habits as it is to the astronomer to know the courses of the stars…We make no apology, therefore, for stepping aside for a moment from the more common farm work of the season. 

More letters about swallows arrived for the November issue. A reader reporting from an island off the coast of Maine indicated that barn swallows left there on August 27. He wondered if the moderating effect of the ocean climate made a difference. Another swallow-watcher drew attention to the bank swallow, adding "I hope your correspondents, in different parts of the New England, will observe the habits of this interesting class of birds the coming year." To a question about barn swallows vs chimney swallows [swifts], the editor referenced descriptions from Nuttall, adding further justification for sustaining this topic:

It is not our intention to make a "hobby" of any particular subject in these columns: but so far as birds, insects, and animals are concerned, they all belong to the farm [my emphasis]--they people the homestead; and always will, and are worthy of careful observation. Though living in their midst and calling upon them for their aid, or opposing their destructive habits, we are strangers to them in many particulars still. To the young, this study will have an important influence upon the character through life.

Ornithology and natural history generally were not simply sources of recreation for farmers and their families; such knowledge was vital for the farming community. The New England Farmer, for its part, was happy to be a medium via which such knowledge could be generated and shared. After yet another swallow article (noting the departure dates of the barn, white-breasted [tree], and brown-breasted [rough-wing?] species), the Farmer outlined one possible project that could make use of the many submissions that had gone unpublished:

It will hardly be necessary to publish in full every letter in relation to the migration of the swallow. We are receiving so many that to publish all would occupy more space than we can find it convenient to spare….But we hope still to be favored with similar notes from lovers of nature with regard to birds…and by-and-by will compile a table from them showing the observations which have been recorded in various parts of the country [my emphasis]…

This was in many ways a model of the kind of citizen science that is still encouraged today in the birding community.

Swallows were not the only ornithological topic in 1852.  Questions from readers featured the pine grosbeak (it had been an irruption year), the winter coat of the bobolink, and the nest location of the rose-breasted grosbeak. 

Among the New England Farmer's bird-interested readership was a genuine German ornithologist named Charles Siedhof, who had run a boy's school in Newton, Massachusetts. Siedhof, who introduced the topic of the rose-breasted grosbeak ("the voice and song of this bird are superior to all American birds, except the ferruginous thrush [brown thrasher]"), had written a guide to German songbirds earlier in his career. His specialty was bird behavior and he described his research arrangement:

For this purpose I was always surrounded by several hundreds of living birds, kept in a suitable room adjoining my study. Two windows, put in the walls between said room and my study, enabled me to watch and observe them carefully….

In a second article he related a story about an oriole and a caged hawk that were on apparent friendly terms and promised similar stories of "evidence of strong attachment of two different species of birds to each other." Indeed, he was in the process of beginning a guide to the birds of New England, and requested that readers contact him to help in this project. Ultimately, his purpose was the use of science "to protect the most faithful friends of the farmer and horticulturist against unjust and unpardonable persecution." The editor encouraged readers to help Siedhof with his project. 

In the January 1853 issue of the New England Farmer, Siedhof, inspired by the letter from J.C.H. in the Horticulturist (last post), contributed an article promising to answer the question, "Are birds useful in destroying insects, especially caterpillars?" 

Not long ago, somebody doubted the usefulness of birds in destroying insects; he was briefly answered in this paper. One should think, that even a man who never examines the stomach of a bird belonging to the Finch tribe…could for a moment be uncertain, with what kind of food they rear their young. Nothing is needed by eyes to see; there are, however, blind who will not see.

The "finch" he was referring to?  The house sparrow.

There is a sparrow--Fringilla, now Pyrgita domestica--so common in Europe, especially in Germany, and in more than one respect so troublesome, that he is persecuted by everybody; and as he was thought to be very injurious to fields and gardens, the different governments made the law, that each male individual of age had annually to deliver a certain number of sparrow heads, varying, in different States, from 6 to 12. After this course had been pursued for many years, people began to complain about the scarcity of fruit. There were sections of the country, where the sparrows had been entirely exterminated. Such parts suffered the most, and, instead of the former abundance, their trees yielded no fruit. 

The literature (going all the way back to Bradley, and then transmitted forward to French naturalists) indicated that house sparrows actually consumed a significant number of insects. Siedhof designed an experiment to test that hypothesis.

…I read in a French journal, a remark of a French naturalist--I believe it was Cuvier--that the sparrows reared their young with nothing but insects…I concluded to ascertain this by a direct experiment. In the following winter (1824) I procured sixty living sparrows. Having made two enclosures in my study, I put twenty-five sparrows in each, ten I caged…I fed twenty-five of them on different kinds of grain…Not one of them lived longer than six weeks; they all died of consumption of the stomach. Twenty-five of them I fed on grain, boiled meat and meal worms. The ten in the cages I fed wholly on either worms or boiled eggs or meat. All of them lived six months in captivity; they were plump and fat, and were set at liberty in the spring. In the following summer, I took several young sparrows of various ages from their nests, killed them and examined their stomachs. I never found anything in them but insects and worms….

His (early) study in economic ornithology being conclusive, Siedhof campaigned to "spare the house sparrow:"

I began to write in periodicals and to address the governments directly….I had the good fortune of restoring the poor sparrows to their lost reputation, at least, in that province of the kingdom of Hanover in which I lived. The above mentioned law was abolished and the sparrows remained unmolested. 

Siedhof challenged doubters to try the experiment themselves. And indeed, soon there would be actual house sparrows in the U.S. to experiment with.

A heretic (1852)

In the July 1852 issue of the Horticulturist, "J.C.H.," writing from Syracuse, attacked the foundations of the "spare the birds" narrative.

He began by quoting back to the Horticulturist a version of the narrative they had told:

"For our own part, we fully believe that it is the gradual decrease of small birds...mainly from the absence of laws against the vagabond race of unfledged sportsmen, who shoot sparrows when they ought to be planting corn, that this inordinate increase of insects is to be attributed." (July 1851).

His attack was multi-faceted. First, hunters couldn't be the cause of the birds' decrease. Most boys, he argued, wouldn't waste shot on songbirds:

The main cause of the destruction of small birds, which,...you ascribe to "unfledged sportsmen who shoot sparrows," &c., is wider of the mark than are the youngsters themselves, even in their most random shots. If it be true that there is any great decrease of small birds, which a familiar acquaintance with them for more than thirty years would lead me to gainsay, the cause alleged is not adequate to the result. I have been an "unfledged sportsman" myself. I was born one. I have passed through, in my experience, the whole range of "light artillery," so terrible to your imagination, from the quill pop-gun to the beautifully telling eloquence of a twin-tubed "Joe Manton;" and boy or man, I can truly say I never yet met with a disposition, even in the most thoughtless, to squander his ambition upon game so insignificant as the class of birds whose fancied destruction you so feelingly deplore. The instinct of economy, if not of scorn, or a feeling of humanity, would forbid it. What though a "sparrow" may sometimes fall to the ground at a long shot, "by way of improvement," can such occasional instances be claimed to cause their decrease to so lamentable an extent as to demand for their protection an invocation to law-makers!

And the much-blamed hunters from the city were too poor shots to make much of an impact:

What though our cities may turn out a few aspiring young Winkles on a pleasant summer's afternoon, who, with immense preparation, sally into the remote wilderness of the suburbs, and wake the echoes with a reckless disregard of powder and shot, is their destructiveness by any means commensurate with the noise they make? I trow not. Their intended victim, unharmed and unterrified, flies chirruping to the next bush in very mockery of their aim to bag him. It is easier to denounce the boys for wholesale destruction of small birds, than it is to convict them of it, and as popular sympathy is against them, the denunciation as easily passes unquestioned for fact. 

Second, birds weren't nearly as "useful" as most believed. To be merely "insectivorous" did not necessarily mean that birds controlled the insects that vexed farmers:

And now one word as to the utility of birds. It is a common belief that they are great benefactors of man in the destruction of pestiferous insects. To this belief I am an inexorable infidel. Who ever saw one of the whole race touch the caterpillar, which, at this season, infests our orchards; or that other kindred nuisance, which, later in the season, appears on all trees indiscriminately, often wholly enveloping them in its mighty net-work; or the slimy slug; or a single living atom of the endless legion of plant lice; or the turnip flea; or the striped cucumber bug; or that most vile of all disgusting creatures, the large black pumpkin bug; or finally the curculio? What one of the whole feathered race was ever known to harm a hair on the head of any one of these eternally recurring abominations? My own attention has for years been directed to this discovery, and that one among them all which is entitled to our gratitude, even to this extent, remains a rara avis still, and Barnum can find another "Nightingale," sooner than add this marvel to his collection. 

Finally, birds' putative "usefulness" did not exhaust the reasons for protecting birds.

Nevertheless, sir, the birds find in me a zealous protector, and they know it. In my own little domain, they are almost as fearless of me and mine, as are the chickens themselves. The pugnacious little wren takes up his habitation in a nook over the front door, and assumes all the bustling importance of one well to do in the world, scolding tremendously at all in-comers and out-goers, by virtue, to be sure, of his being the lawfully taxable proprietor of the premises; the robin hurries down from the tree to pick up the worm I toss him in compensation for the Jenny Lind touches he half strangles himself in trying to imitate, and feeds confidingly within a few feet of me in the garden; while I am fairly obliged to walk around the little chipping bird at the kitchen door, to avoid treading on him, so tame have they all become in consequence of gentle deportment towards them. Birds appreciate kindness quickly, and seem even to comprehend the pleasant words that are spoken to them. Though I owe them nothing for preserving my plums and cherries, yet woe to the urchin that molests them within the boundaries of my principality. Their cheerful companionship, their graceful sportings, their varied attempts to express their joyfulness in song, from the ludicrous enthusiasm with which one note is continually cachinnated, to very tolerable approaches to successful modulation, give them social claims upon me which compensate a thousand fold for all they destroy, and all they do not.

If you liked birds, you protected them. Utility was besides the point.

The editor, recognizing this as a serious attack on conventional wisdom, appended a reply: "J.C.H. is a heretic--an unbeliever in all written creeds...."

Some responses were emotional. "A Subscriber at the West," fired back the very next issue:

I do not like your correspondent, J.C.H....I am very angry with him. I think that if I had an opportunity I should feel strangely tempted to pull his hair!...

"Boys do not shoot birds," do they? Then I am laboring under a delusion in thinking that my own pet robins, and blue-birds too, became food for--fishes, once upon a time! There are a few boys in these United States, who do not live in the city, and who are not such very poor marksmen either, as I know to my cost....

The editor, invoking science, joined in:

If J.C.H. will examine the works of any of the entomologists who have taken pains carefully to study the habits of insects, he will find them continually referring to the agency of birds in destroying or preventing the excessive increase of various sorts of insects.... 

He referred to Harris (see the earlier episode between the New England Farmer and Buckingham of the Boston Courier), using the example of the blue jay, which by consuming 200 grubs a day, ultimately would keep 8 million insects from developing.

J.C.H.'s article was widely circulated. The Maine Farmer, in a response reprinted in The New England Farmer, called on J.C.H. to practice economic ornithology.

We would ask, where has J.C.H. been, all his days? Has he ever watched the operations of birds? Has he ever killed and opened any of them, and examined the contents of their crops and gizzards? If he had, he would never be caught asking such questions as he has, nor would he ever intimate that birds do not destroy caterpillars and such like nuisances. We have seen the Baltimore Oriole...often seize upon the common tent caterpillar...and tearing them open feast upon their entrails.We have repeatedly seen the common robin in gardens, ferret out the cut worm and swallow him. The swallows, at sunset, scale along the surface of the ground, and snatch in their rapid flight thousands of insects on the wing. Other birds devour other insects, and if he is faithless, or has never seen the birds catch them, let him just catch the birds, and cut them open, and he will often find the insects themselves safely stowed away in their gizzards, or other parts of their digestive organs. We advise him to study ornithology a little, in a practical way, and mend his wisdom in this particular.

J.C.H. responded in the November 1852 issue of the Horticulturist, finding "no cause for self-reproach." His main attack had been on the "common belief that they are great benefactors of man in the destruction of pestiferous insects." His critics had not adequately rebutted that argument. Instead, "What I seem perversely to be understood to say is that birds do not destroy insects at all...." It didn't matter if an oriole occasionally ate a caterpillar or a robin a cutworm. They didn't typically, and they didn't eat enough of them to make a difference. In his orchard, the orioles and robins left the tent caterpillars alone.

Furthermore, he saw no need of quarrel with "A Lady Subscriber at the West:"

I surely was not contending that the boys did not outrage the sensibilities of sympathetic ladies, now and then, by destroying their pet birds...My own sympathies were distinctively manifested in denouncing woe against them....

With respect to economic ornithology, a more thorough understand of birds' diet would reveal that they consumed many truly useful creatures, in particular the spider, "entirely inoffensive to man, yet resolute, untiring, and insatiable in his destructive pursuit of other insects...." Indeed, while the cedar waxwing was commonly shot for its raid on cherries, it was actually its fondness for spiders that was the problem.

The responses to J.C.H.'s objections demonstrate just how entrenched the "spare the birds" narrative had become during this era. As economic ornithology developed over the course of second half of the 19th century, however, it would take criticisms like his more and more into account, carefully considering not only the insect vs. grain/fruit ratio in the digestive tracts of birds cut open, but the kinds of insects consumed and how harmful or beneficial they were considered. At the same time, his rejection of utility as a necessary basis for protection probably accords with modern sensibilities.

Frances Dana Barker Gage and the hunter-naturalist (1852)

Birding loving Frances Dana Barker Gage was an outspoken abolitionist, feminist, and temperance advocate. Writing as "Aunt Fanny," she contributed a regular letter to the Ladies' Department of the Ohio Cultivator, where she talked about a variety of topics, from sewing machines to birds & flowers. She could be very critical of the prevailing "utilitarian" attitude toward those topics, as in a June 1, 1852 letter:

"Of what use," cries the utilitarian and money-maker,"are birds and flowers." Of what use? God made them--and he has made nothing in vain. If beauty and fragrance and harmony were not useful, this world would not be full to overflowing with them all. Yes, God made the birds and the flowers, but he never made a bank bill or a railroad bond. The love of birds and flowers never made a man a tyrant or a robber; but the love of money has done both...

She used her writing to "plant the seed" of love of birds and flowers.

In its July 15 issue the Ohio Cultivator printed a letter (originally in the Cleveland True Democrat) in which Aunt Fanny reported on a visit to Chester County, Pennsylvania. She discovered something in one of the farm-houses that "surprised and delighted" her. 

A cabinet of curiosities, in the shape of birds, beasts, insect and reptile, plant, shrub, and flower, all in a high state of preservation. There were near five hundred birds, stuffed and made to look as perfectly natural as if they were cheerily singing their morning or midnight song, in their own native forest and woods, from the grave and solemn owl down to the tinyest hummingbird that ever sipped sweet from the bell of a honeysuckle….All these things were the gatherings up of the leisure hours of a young farmer…within the last four or five years, and in his own neighborhood too….What an interesting occupation it would be for the leisure time of our young men and maidens, to thus get up home cabinets and honor through Nature, Nature's God, in all His glorious attributes and perfections. What a high source of intellectual amusement and scientific research. 

Taxidermied bird collections were becoming more and more popular during this period, a new wrinkle on the boy bird shooter so often criticized. Modeled after John James Audubon, who had just recently died, "hunter-naturalists" could justify their sport by an appeal to scientific ornithology. (See especially, C.W. Webber's The Hunter-Naturalist: Romance of Sporting (1851) ).

New England Farmer associate editor and resident bird expert, Henry F. French, was proud of his own collection, taken during his younger days. He, like Gage, thought collecting was a splendid activity for country boys. 

My collection, by the way, which comprises about a hundred specimens, and which I picked up from time to time about fifteen to eighteen years ago, are in almost perfect preservation as when first procured. I say this by way of encouragement to any of your readers, who may feel an interest in this fascinating branch of study. Any country boy of common ingenuity, may obtain at very little cost of money, a collection of native birds, which will constitute one of the most beautiful and useful ornaments for his home that can be imagined. A taste for the subject as a science would soon lead to an accurate knowledge of the habits of birds, and prevent their wanton destruction. (April, 1852)

French was a protector of birds, writing, " I have never shot a single bird on my farm since I occupied it, and suffer the crows to sit daily on my tall pine within reach of my rifle unharmed." He frequently preached the sermon of birds' usefulness to the New England Farmer's readership.  Far from seeing a contradiction between the protection of birds and the killing of them, he saw a positive relationship. If you were collecting specimens for scientific study, that, by definition, wasn't "wanton" destruction. 

In response to requests, he taught readers "How to stuff birds," in the August 1852 issue of the Farmer. His instructions included a section on "how to kill a bird." (It is not for the squeamish.)

You can easily wring their necks, or cut their heads off, but since feathers are considered somewhat ornamental to birds, this kind of violence will not do. Blood can be easily washed off of water birds, but not from land birds… 

The scientific mode of murdering the poor innocent creatures…is to pinch them with the thumb and fingers under the wings so as to stop respiration, and as gentle [he's being sarcastic] Isaac Walton says, in directing how to put a live frog on to a fish hook, "in so doing, handle him as if you loved him." …If any one objects to having birds killed, he "had better stop,...before he begins" his collection. 

One fan of Gage, indeed, objected to her support of the practice, writing (September 15, 1852):

I have been grieved to find one paragraph which seems at variance with the general tenor of her writings….To me it does not seem like an interesting occupation for our country youth to take the lives of so many dear little warblers, who are enjoying their brief existence so cheerily, singing in their native element, their morning and evening songs, gladdening all nature with their vocal music.  

And surely while we have health and strength to ramble over the hills or fields, and hear the sweet forest songsters….where Nature and Nature's God has placed them unmolested by any other hand, save His, "who, when he formed, designed them an abode" till their short span is ended--we should feel as if we were religiously fulfilling our duties, than while catching and depriving of life so many harmless creatures by sticking pins through their bodies, hearing their pitiful death shrieks, or in any way torturing them for our gratification to look at when at home.

The editor agreed that such killing could be "unnecessary cruelty" but not if "valuable instruction could be gained for it." Nevertheless, "even in that case we should fear the effects upon the disposition." Killing innocent creatures was bad for one's moral development.

In a January 15, 1853 letter to the Ohio Cultivator, Gage responded.

Your correspondent…thinks it would be a cruel amusement to kill birds and butterflies, simply for gratification of this kind. I regret that my words should have conveyed the idea that I would, for mere amusement, suggest the taking of life from any living thing.

Surprisingly, however, instead of repeating the justification from science, she argued the old farmer's justification:

But if the Orioles and American Canaries [goldfinch], plunder our peavines, shall we not take measures to secure our rights? If the kingfisher [kingbird?] makes war upon the bee-hive, the mocking-birds upon our cherries, the wood-pecker upon our best apples, …the…blackbirds and crows upon our corn, the quails, pigeons,...become robbers and depredators, and we are obliged to defend ourselves and property, is there any objection to immortalizing even our enemies, and preserving their beauty and grace, though the harmony of life is gone?

Her knowledge of economic ornithology, regrettably, was not up-to-date. Ultimately, however, she used the criticism as an opportunity for reflection on the cruelties underpinning much of every-day life:

I will not argue the question with my friend, for hers is the higher mercy and kindness; but I would inquire, does my friend, for the gratification of her taste, eat meat? does she carry a muff or tippet? has she ever worn a silk dress, or ribbon upon her bonnet, or about her neck, and reflected how many lives have been sacrificed to give her the luxury? Again I say, I do not pretend to justify one of these things; but I have thought of them all, and thank our friend for her reproof; it has made me more cautious to impress mercy and kindness to every living thing, upon those about me. 

The killing and collection of specimens in scientific ornithology remains a controversial practice, often criticized by humane organizations. The idea that individual boys should complete their own stuffed bird (and egg) collections was ultimately counter to the aims of bird protection in the United States, and would be the target of campaigns to come. Collecting, did, nevertheless, produce naturalists such as Gilbert Pearson, who would be influential in the Audubon movement. 

John Brown's Wrens: Abolitionism and bird protection

John Brown's daughter's told a bird protection story about her abolitionist father:

One day, a short time after I went down there, father was sitting at the table writing, I was near by sewing..., when two little wrens that had a nest under the porch came flying in at the door, fluttering and twittering; then flew back to their nest and again to us several times, seemingly trying to attract our attention. They appeared to be in great distress. I asked father what he thought was the matter with the little birds. He asked if I had ever seen them act so before; I told him no. 'Then let us go and see,' he said. We went out and found that a snake had crawled up the post and was just ready to devour the little ones in the nest. Father killed the snake; and then the old birds sat on the railing and sang as if they would burst. It seemed as if they were trying to express their joy and gratitude to him for saving their little ones. After we went back into the room, he said he thought it very strange the way the birds asked him to help them, and asked if I thought it an omen of his success....[H]e always thought and felt that God called him to that work; and seemed to place himself, or rather to imagine himself, in the position of the figure in the old seal of Virginia, with the tyrant under her foot. (Sanborn,1885, p. 531)

It is not my intention to make a strong claim about direct connections between the bird protection and abolitionist movements. For the most part, rather than being mutual influences they both can be seen as falling under the philosophical umbrellas of "benevolence" or "social reform" or "Christian mercy." In John Brown's case, he had been called by God to overthrow tyranny, whatever the order of being. In Henry Ward Beecher's case, love for one's fellow humans could be extended to love for one's fellow non-human beings.

Lydia Maria Child is a case in point. She was an anti-slavery activist, a feminist, an outspoken critic of capital punishment, and an advocate for Native American rights. And she was a huge bird lover, whose writings about barn swallows and great-crested flycatchers (originally for the Boston Courier, collected in Letters from New York), circulated throughout the general and agricultural press in the 1840s. While Child loved the birds for themselves, she herself drew a symbolic connection between the condition of slavery and the persecution of birds.

The darling little creatures have such visible delight in freedom….I seldom see a bird encaged without being reminded of Petion [Alexandre Pétion], a truly great man, the popular idol of Haiti, as Washington is of the United States.

While Petion administered the government of the island, some distinguished foreigner sent his little daughter a beautiful bird, in a very handsome cage. The child was delighted, and with great exultation exhibited the present to her father. "It is, indeed, very beautiful, my daughter," said he; "but it makes my heart ache to look at it. I hope you will never show it to me again. 

With great astonishment, she inquired his reasons. He replied, "When this island was called St. Domingo, we were all slaves. It makes me think of it to look at that bird; for he is a slave." 

The little girl's eyes filled with tears, and her lips quivered, as she exclaimed, "Why father! he has such a large, handsome cage; and as much as ever he can eat and drink."
"And would you be a slave," said he, "if you could live in a great house, and be fed on frosted cake?" 

After a moment's thought, the child began to say, half reluctantly, "Would he be happier, if I opened the door of the cage?" "He would be free!" was the emphatic reply. Without another word, she took the cage to the open window, and a moment after, she saw her prisoner playing with the humming-birds among the honey-suckles. (Child, 1843, p.141).

Lesley Ginsburg, in a (2003) book chapter, "Babies, Beasts, and Bondage: Slavery and the Question of Citizenship in Antebellum American Children's Literature," points to similar imagery in The Slave's Friend, a landmark in abolitionist children's literature. Two kinds of stories related birds and slaves: one the caged bird, desiring its freedom. 

The other is a the story of "bird-nesting" in which two boys steal chicks from their nest, thinking that they know better than the birds' parents how to take care of them. The chicks die and the narrator provides the moral: "James acted as the slaveholders do. They seize men as James seized the birds...[while men] like John, look on, and either help to commit the robbery, or offer all manner of excuses for the robbers. They say, as John did, 'if I should let the birds go, they cannot take care of themselves.'" (Ginsburg, p.93 ). Meanwhile in this, and similar accounts elsewhere, the parent (birds) mourn the forced separation from their children. 

These sentiments would feed back into the bird protection movement, which (as in the Child account above) would find pathos in the sight of caged birds and would use the emotional pain of the child separated from its parent as an appeal against real-life bird-nesting and the hunting of birds during breeding season. 

Our final exhibit, predating by some years the material above is the British women's anti-slavery publication, The Humming Bird, published in the 1820s. A poem placed on the title page makes the significance of the title clear:

As the small Bird, that fluttering roves
Among Jamaica's tam'rind groves,
A feather'd busy bee,
In note scarce rising to a song,
Incessant, hums the whole day long,
In slavery's Island, free! 

So shall "A still small voice" be heard,
Though humble as the Humming Bird,
In Britain's groves of oak;
And to the Peasant from the King,
In every ear shall ceaseless sing,
"Free Afric from her yoke."

The connection between birds and freedom-from-slavery here may seem completely symbolic. Even in this publication, though, the editors included natural history information about actual hummingbirds, even if they didn't explicitly advocate their protection. Note that William Lloyd Garrison would reprint the above poem in the first volume of The Abolitionist (1833). 

The tragedy of the caged birds (1850)

In its January 1850 issue, the American Farmer printed the following story contributed by "Portia in the country, Delaware." It is a true-to-life story with a moral.

Last summer my sister came from the city with her family to pass a few weeks with us, and her carriage driver purchased of some boys in the neighborhood a nest of young American Mocking Birds. The young birds in their nest were placed in a cage which was hung upon a tree in the yard, and tho' they been brought the distance of a mile, the old birds soon found their "loved and lost ones," though secured within the bars of a prison, and expressed great joy at the meeting. We all endeavored to negotiate for their liberty, and tried to purchase them but in vain. The old birds now resumed their task of supplying them with food, boldly entering the yard, rendered fearless of danger through force of maternal and paternal love. The limb to which the cage was suspended, overhung a backbuilding, and a cat seeing the birds constantly there, crawled out, watched her opportunity, and struck the old bird, the father of the family, down. And now the widowed mother seeing the support of her helpless imprisoned little ones depended solely on her own exertions, seemed to redouble her efforts, her toil and labour. She was doubtless a mourner in her heart, and we fancied we could discover in her plaintive notes the grief that oppressed her. Again negotiations were resumed for their freedom, but the price was advanced to three dollars apiece, and the man seemed obstinately bent on keeping them. But it was pitiful to see the old bird panting and breathless in the hot summer days continuing her toil to procure them food, their increased size now requiring more sustenance.

At this time, by some means or other one of the young birds escaped through the bars of the cage, and after sporting about for a time, in the course of a day or two we saw him engaged with this mother in supplying food to his little imprisoned brothers and sisters. Day after day, and hour after hour, away they would go together, the widowed mother and her orphan boy, returning with what seemed a most grateful repast, and welcomed with the most joyous acclamations by the little prisoners. 

But from the heat of the weather in their exposed situation, or because their owner had added some food that did not agree with them, one by one the young caged birds all died!

And now as thus "thrice flew the shaft, and thrice her peace was slain," the notes of wailing and woe were heard throughout the grove from morning till night. Poor bird! I pitied her--I pitied them both--but the mother! for what love equals a mother's, what grief like hers refuses consolation!

Those familiar with Whitman's "Out of the cradle, endlessly rocking," (1859) will remember a similar scene. The moral of the story follows:

What a moral--what a text for commentary was her exhibited! nor did my own little fledgelings fail to feel an interest in the "story of the birds," which I have so often repeated to them. And how many such little incidents there are connected with our rural homes, from which to make us better and wise as we "look through nature up to nature's God!"

May my sons love liberty and hate tyranny and oppression more, from remembering the fate of the imprisoned birds! and when I told them, it was something like the story of poor [Hungarian freedom fighter] Louis Kossuth, they wanted to hear all about him, and in the course of the fireside lectures this winter, I shall tell them all about poor Kossuth, his devoted wife, and noble old mother, and of the Russian Bear who seeks their lives!

To cage a wild bird was somehow un-American. Meanwhile, the correspondent urged the editor of the American Farmer to include more articles targeted at female readers. 

I don't know that you will think the columns of the "Farmer" is the proper place for a "story," but please to remember that farmers' wives and daughters take a peep into all the papers brought from the post-office and we women, too often perhaps, think that the most interesting heading for an article is that which I have placed at the head of mine, "A Story," and then Mr. Editor, mine is an "o'er true story."

I have another little story to tell of the birds, provided you like this--for we live among the birds and their "concerts" so cheaply enjoyed content us. 

As far as I can tell this second story was never realized.

The caging of native songbirds was a growing practice in the U.S. at this time, bolstered by publications such as D. J. Browne's American Bird Fancier (heavily advertised in agricultural papers), which gave detailed instructions based on the ornithological literature on how to tame and care for native birds, including mockingbirds, brown thrashers, and bobolinks. (See also  The Skillful Housewife's Book (1852), in which the daily care of caged wild birds is described as women's work.) A row of caged birds in one's garden would ensure birdsong, completing the picturesque rural scene without the concern about fruit depredations. That the breeding of songbirds had become an agricultural concern is demonstrated by an list of premiums for a Maryland agricultural and horticultural exhibition in 1853. In addition to domestic fowl, pheasants, and exotic birds, the fair offered $5 premiums on the best American birds, including: robin, baltimore oriole, cardinal, indigo bunting, american goldfinch, catbird, red-wing blackbird, bobolink, orchard oriole and of course, the mockingbird.

Browne's entry for the mockingbird, the "unrivalled Orpheus of the forest and natural wonder of America" [Nuttall] is instructive. The author noted that "those which have been taken in trap cages are accounted the best singers, as they come from the school of nature, and are taught their own wild wood notes. The young are easily reared by hand from the nest...." In addition to providing music, the tamed bird was a source of humor and playfulness:

Soon reconciled to the usurping fancy of man, the mocking bird often becomes familiar with his master; playfully attacks him through the bars of his cage, or at large in a room; restless and capricious, he seems to try every expedient of a lively imagination, that may conduce to his amusement. Nothing escapes his discerning and intelligent eye nor faithful ear. He whistles, perhaps for the dog, who, deceived, runs to meet his master; the cries of the chicken in distress bring out the clucking mother to the protection of her brood. The barking of the dog, the piteous wailing of the puppy, the mewing of the cat, the action of a saw, or the creaking of a wheelbarrow quickly follow with exactness.

The food needed to sustain mockingbirds was varied. The author, through apparent personal experience, recommended "berries of various kinds…a few grasshoppers, beetles, or any insects conveniently to be had, as well as gravel…and spiders will often revive them when drooping or sick."

There was a market for mockingbirds, and it could be a profitable one.

Good singing birds of this species generally command from $5 to $15 each, though individuals of extraordinary and peculiar powers have been sold as high as $50 or $100 each and even $300 have been refused! 

By some estimates the 1850 dollar is worth around $30 today. This would mean mockingbirds could fetch between $150 to $9000 on the marketplace. Because markets like this put pressure on numbers of the wild bird, the practice of trapping and caging wild birds would be a target not just of anti-cruelty groups, but of bird protection generally in years to come. 

Jenny Lind competes with American birds (1851)

During the Connecticut small birds debate, in the deliberation about the brown thrasher ("long-tailed thrush"), William W. Boardman made the following comment: "even the Swedish Nightingale herself has listened to him with perfect admiration and despair." This was a reference to Jenny Lind, the first professionally promoted (courtesy of P.T. Barnum) music superstar, who toured the U.S. between 1850 and 1852 amid heavy press coverage.

Lind was bird lover, famously crediting her singing style to the study of birdsong:

I sing after no one's method--only as far as I am able, after that of the birds; for their Master was the only one who came up to my demands for truth, clearness and expression.

A staple of her repertoire, in fact, was a song by William Taubert (Ich muss nun einmal singen [I must sing]), known in English as the "Bird Song." The song contained passages that allowed her to show off her famous "shake" (trill) and her skill in the whistle register. Here is a later recording of the piece that provides a taste of what listeners in 1850 might have heard:

This song was an audience favorite (Emily Dickson made note of it). Vera Brodsky Lawrence's (1995) account of the New York music scene of the 1850s indicates that it was the moment in the performance when the "nightingale" fully emerged.

To George W. Curtis it was a "bird's warble of delight--a melodious sweep and shower of sparkling sound--the lark's love lyric to the sun as she soars to meet him." The "scenery" Lind created for this song…was perfect. "We saw the bird wheeling and tumbling in the air--we rose with him…in the sun-ecstasy, and for the time it was only a bird warbling in the blue, of which we were conscious" ….Even [Henry C.] Watson [a Lind critic] had to admit that in this music Lind had no equal--there seemed to be "a whole aviary of mocking-birds in her throat," all struggling to be heard...(p 77)

The nightingale and mockingbird have similar singing styles--endlessly inventive, combining long strings of varied elements. Indeed, the mockingbird had been long considered the nightingale's New World counterpart. Which bird was the superior singer was a long-standing debate between British and American ornithologists (Audubon, for one, thought the mockingbird superior) underpinned, perhaps, by not a little nationalistic chauvinism.

Stories emerged about Lind's (the nightingale's) encounters with local American birds. The New York Mirror, for example, told the following apocryphal tale:

There was a mocking-bird in Jenny Lind's apartment at Boston, which imitated some of her most brilliant passages so truly and exquisitely that Barnum turned pale, being certain that, as the owner of the bird was very rich, he could not purchase the treasure that already rivaled the Nightingale. The latter, however, smiled at his fears, sprang to the piano and struck off her Swedish echo song. The mocking-bird listened, and then essayed an imitation, but, unable to follow the notes of the human warbler, died convulsed in the effort. 

The most famous story was an encounter in the woods near Utica, NY.   George William Curtis first reported the story in the pages of the New-York Tribune in 1851 (reprinted in his 1852 collection, Lotus-eating). The story itself was second-hand; Curtis had been told the story by his carriage boy, who related it as follows:

As we came back, we passed a little wood, and Jenny Lind stopped the carriage and stepped out with the rest of the party and went into the wood. It was toward sunset, and the wood was beautiful. She walked about a little and picked up flowers, and sang like to herself, as if it were pleasant. By-and-by she stopped, a little bird came and sat upon a bough close by us. And when Jenny Lind had done, he began to sing and shout away like she did. While he was singing, she looked delighted, and when he stopped she sang again, and oh! it was beautiful, sir. But the little bird wouldn't give it up, and he sang again, but not until she had done. Then Jenny Lind sang as well as ever she could. Her voice seemed to fill the woods all up with music, and, when it was over, the little bird was still awhile, but tried it again in a few moments. He couldn't do it, sir. He sang very bad, and then the foreign gentlemen with Jenny laughed, and they all came back to the carriage.

Curtis's commentary pointed to the ancient tale behind both contemporary accounts:

It was pleasant to hear the boy's story….I had not dreamed that the romance of the Poet's Lute and the Nightingale [in which the nightingale expires trying to imitate the poet] should be native to Oneida County no less than to Greece, and that its poet should be my callow charioteer, who may one day be President. When I sat at my window afterward, and in the fading twilight looked over the maple woods, and heard the murmur of Trenton Falls, I wondered if the bird ever reached its nest, or was found dead in the woods without a gun-shot wound.

Boardman, of course, had remembered the story wrong. Jenny Lind had "won" this singing competition, not the native bird. Moreover, the brown thrasher is more a bird of shrub-lands than forests, so it seems a little out of place in this story. But, during this era, the mockingbird was still considered a southern bird, even though it was frequently caged and exported north and overseas. The brown thrasher was its northern counterpart, with a similarly inventive singing style. So the bird fit the story paradigm best. One wonders if Boardman's faulty memory was informed by a projection of regional bias. 

It is worth noting that Jenny Lind's "nightingale" tag inspired localized American tags, including Eliza Biscaccianti, the "American Thrush," and Emma Bostwick Gillingham, "our native bobolink." (See Lawrence 1995). 

Lewis F. Allen preserves a birdy swamp (1850)

In its September 1850 issue, the Michigan Farmer ran a profile of Lewis F. Allen, prominent stock breeder and businessman. He was the elder brother of Anthony B. and Richard L. Allen, the founding editors of the American Agriculturist.

The profile, part of a series of articles touring prominent farms, began:

Allen is rough hewn, merely blocked out, and has a rather prosy exterior, but he has some interior apartments which are well fitted up; prosy as he looks, he is as full of poetry as he can hold. 

Allen's farm was situated on Grand Island, between Niagara Falls and Buffalo, NY. The article proceeded to make a tour of the grounds. Finally the author's company and subject reached an undeveloped section of the property.

At the far end of the field, we came to a small wood, with underbrush so thick as to make parts of it impervious to mortal footsteps, and a wet swale running through it--Here he commanded attention, and said he wanted to hold a council upon this piece of wood; so we all sat down upon the logs, when he opened his mouth and said, "Gentlemen, I am in a quandary; there is a swamp which no mortal can penetrate, but it is the home of the sweetest songsters of the forest, and there at certain hours of the day, they pour forth their almost unearthly music up on the ear of the lingering passer-by, and what shall I do? If I clear out the under-brush, and drain off the swale, I shall drive away the birds."

The draining of wetlands during this period of American agriculture was widely recommended in the agricultural literature and was usually done with little thought of its consequences for wildlife.

After mature deliberation, and many sage remarks, our assembled wisdom came to the unanimous conclusion; 1st, that the swamp belonged to the birds by right of possession [my emphasis], and that he had no right to disturb them; 2d, that it would show a spirit of barbarism to undertake to molest them; 3d, that it was due to the spirit of civilization, progress, and refinement, which was abroad, that they should not be molested; and finally, that his own highest poetical interest required of him total abstinence from any and all participation in so unpoetical a deed, recommending to him, in conclusion, as he valued his reputation as a poet, and as a man, simply to make a winding foot pathway through the thicket, all of which was in most perfect accordance with his own poetical feelings, and of course, he "signed the bill," and it has now become a law. The birdies then have nothing to fear, from this time forth.

The deliberation parodies legislative proceedings (whether explicitly inspired by the New Jersey or Connecticut small bird laws it is hard to know). The idea that the birds had "right of possession" while probably facetious in this case would be taken up more seriously in years to come. This early bird sanctuary, inspired more by a "poetic" sensibility than a "utilitarian" one, is now part of Beaver Island State park. 

Doubts about house wrens (The Horticulturist, 1849)

The Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste. Devoted to Horticulture, Landscape Gardening, Rural Architecture, Botany, Pomology, Entomology, Rural Economy, &c. made its publication debut June 1846. The famed horticulturalist and designer, A.J. Downing, served as editor. Luther Tucker, entrepreneurial editor of the Albany-based Cultivator was the publisher. Joseph Breck, the former publisher/editor of the New England Farmer and seed company magnate, was a sales agent and contributor. The Horticulturist was marketed as a first-rate agricultural publication. 

Downing had just published the influential Fruits and Fruit Trees of America. In that book he showed his knowledge of birds and his positive attitude towards them:

The assistance of birds in destroying insects should be duly estimated by the fruit-grower. The quantity of eggs and insects in various states, devoured annually by birds, when they are encouraged in gardens, is truly surprising. It is true that one or two species of these…annoy us by preying upon the earlier cherries, but even taking this into account, we are inclined to believe that we can much better spare a reasonable share of a few fruits, than dispense with the good services of birds in ridding us of an excess of insects. 

The most serviceable birds are the common sparrows, the wren, the red-breast, and in short, most of the birds of this class. All these birds should be encouraged to build nests and inhabit the fruit garden, and this may most effectually be done by not allowing a gun to be fired within its boundaries. The introduction of hedges or live fences, greatly promotes the domestication of birds, as they afford an admirable shelter for their nests. Our own gardens are usually much more free from insects than those a mile or two distant, and we attribute this in part to our practice of encouraging birds, and to the thorn and arbor vitae hedges growing here, and which are greatly resorted to by those of the feathered tribe which are the greatest enemies of the insect race. (55-56).

Incidentally, the first edition of Downing's book included an ad for T.P. Giraud's The Birds of Long Island (1844), a species guide designed for "gunners."

In the October 1849 issue of the Horticulturist, a correspondent "J.J.S." contributed an article titled, "Wrens the best insect destroyers," which was primarily about the interesting nesting behavior of house wrens--he described a nest in an "accidental wren box," an ornamental rail post in Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cemetery. He cited Barton in support of the "usefulness" of the wren, quoting: "the esculent vegetables of a whole garden may, perhaps, be preserved from the depredations of different species of insects, by ten or fifteen pair of these small birds."

His goal in writing, though was not simply to share his story. The correspondent pointed to the bird-related articles [some by Charles Waterton] in "Loudon's Gardener's Magazine," a British publication. He requested more bird-related content in the Horticulturist, calling on readers to observe the habits of bird and write in, and for the editors to glean material from the literature (particularly "Wilson's most agreeable but expensive pages"). As an example, he copied in Wilson's poem about bluebirds. 

In the December 1849 issue, "Jeffreys, Western New-York," who had been invited by the Horticulturist to offer overall commentary about the October issue, was particularly supportive of "J.J.S."'s contribution:

Give me your hand--aye, both of them. I wish I knew your name. You breathe the true spirit of Wilson and Audubon, and all others who love the dear little songsters that cheer us with their melody, and relieve us of the thousand pests which mar our pleasure in rural life. How instructive the dear little things in their habitations, and how useful their little labors to any place they occupy. Every body should try to accommodate not only the wrens, but every other bird which feeds on noxious insects, in all parts of his grounds. We know very little of the good that is done by these friendly companions, and palsied be the arm that would lift a thing to destroy them. … Tell us more about the birds, my friend. I shall always be obliged to you for manifesting so much kindness of spirit, as well as for the instruction so pleasantly imparted.

Another contributor, calling himself "Ornithologist, Rhode-Island" however, was less enthusiastic about house wrens. In a long article in the same issue, he asked that he be permitted to

give the character of this little bird, without scandal, vouching for the truth of every charge, which may be confirmed by the observation of any one.

Contrary to Barton's recommendation, the house wren was a potentially dangerous presence in the garden, 

One pair of blue birds will destroy more injurious insects than six pair of wrens,--the food of the latter being partly spiders. There is another objection to the wrens; they will drive away from their district any other bird, by destroying their nests and eggs. A neighbor of mine shot eleven of these little pirates in one season, after which the swallows, blue birds, robins, sparrows &c., returned and rebuilt their nests.

He noted that wren boxes should be placed at least forty feet apart, "as birds are jealous." The incorporation of birds into one's garden required management, and in order to properly manage, one needed to understand not just the individual birds' feeding habits but their interactions with other birds and insect predators. 

One way to attract birds to one's orchard was to feed them. The correspondent described an elaborate (for its era) feeding set-up that allowed viewing ("these little visitors are amusing, and their innocent society helps to cheer us through the winter.")

A little millet seed was first thrown upon the platform, which soon attracted large flocks of tree sparrows, snow birds, lesser redpoles, and occasionally a few song sparrows, and still less frequently a solitary white throated sparrow. The fox sparrows came in the fall from the north, and stopped again on their return in the spring. Oily seeds, hemp and sunflower, and the kernels of various kinds of nuts, were next tried, which attracted the chickadee, or black capt titmouse, and the nut-hatch, and sometimes the downy woodpecker. All of them relish a piece of fresh fat meat; (salt meat is injurious to them.) In the country, the blue jay will come regularly for a breakfast of corn; he is also a lover of fresh meat, but should not be permitted to visit the garden or orchard in the summer, as he is known to devour the eggs and young of other birds. 

The writer was evidently known by the Horticulturist's editor, who invited him to contribute more articles. "Jeffreys, Western New-York," (February, 1850) however, appreciated the contribution but disagreed with its conclusion.

Welcome, my good friend, into the kind brotherhood of those who love God's creatures. I am sorry, however, you don't like the wrens. Of all things, I like them for their very spider eating. The spiders! Bless me, my good sir, they are the bane, not exactly of my own, but all summer they are of my good wife's existence. Why, you know nothing about it. Every other day, from April to November, you see her with handkerchief, tied turban fashion around her head, out in the broad piazza, with Tom and his brush, and Moll with her stick, and the dear soul with the tongs to pinch them,--all clamorous and busy for an hour in poking out, and brushing off the "filthy spiders.".... Why, I wish we had a thousand wrens to catch the vile torments. Blue birds, robins, sparrows,--all may go, if the wrens will but catch the spiders….

In addition to his aesthetic but ecologically unsound attitude toward spiders, Jeffreys had his own bird-feeding suggestion:

[If] you love the drone of the dear little humming-bird, plant a scarlet monthly honeysuckle by the columns of your porch, or library, or bed-room window, and the tiny things will be all day boring into the long cups of the flowers, and perchance fly into the windows; and in its fright to get out again, one will dash against the glass, where, in order to release it, you will catch it as you would a butterfly; and while holding it in your hand, and gazing at its delicious plumage, will feel its tiny heart throb against your fingers in its agony, till you let it go into the broad sunshine of its enjoyment, soon to return and buzz away its happy hours as before.

Despite the core disagreement, Jeffreys was encouraging:

Write again, my dear sire. You remind me of White, of Selborne, who wrote some years ago one of the pleasantest books I ever read, on the Natural History of his neighborhood. 

If this series of articles is a good indication, it would appear that Barton, Wilson, Audubon and White had already been canonized as the great ornithological figure-heads. 

Connecticut debates the small bird law (1851)

In 1851, the Legislature of Connecticut revisited its 1850 "act to prevent the destruction of certain small birds." In later years debate over this bill in particular would be regarded as having been uniquely contentious. Accounts in Connecticut newspapers, reprinted nationwide, help to explain why.

The most comprehensive account of the legislative session was apparently from the Hartford Courant [I only have reprints so I've not seen the original] and circulated with the title, "Debate on the destruction of small birds." Another account, which originally ran in the New Haven Palladium, was titled "Ornithology in a Legislative Assembly." This debate was an important moment in the bird protection movement, so I've decided to include as much as actual text as possible. The core text is from the Courant, with supplements from the Palladium indicated through the use of a san-serif font.

The Courant began by indicating that the account was no common news story: it was demanded by readers who had heard of the debate and wanted to see it in print. 

Few of the debates which have sprung up during the present session of the Legislature of Connecticut ...have been listened to with more attention, or have apparently excited a deeper interest, than that which occupied the attention of the House on the third reading of the bill "to prevent the destruction of certain small birds;" and though some time has passed since it took place, the interest to see it in print is so general that we have endeavored, with the aid of some who took part in the debate, to collect what was said on that occasion.

The bill was introduced (the Palladium got an important detail wrong): 

Mr. [Elihu] Spencer of Watertown [actually, Middletown] , chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, brought up the bill for an "act to prevent the destruction of certain small birds" explaining briefly its object and its superiority over the bill passed last session, which is repealed.

The bill was more specific in the methods of killing to be banned and included a few more bird species ("yellow-bird" [American Goldfinch] and "phebe" [Eastern Phoebe]). [See previous post for the bill's original language].

That any person who shall shoot or in any other manner kill, destroy, entrap, ensnare, or otherwise capture upon lands not owned or occupied by himself, any of the following birds, viz. robin, blue-bird, swallow, martin or swift, night or musquito hawk, whip poor-will, cuckoo, king-bird, wake-up or high hole woodpecker, cat-birds, long-tailed thrush or brown thrasher, mourning dove, meadow lark or marsh quail, fire-bird or summer red-bird, hanging-bird, spider bird or wax-bird, ground robin or chewheat, bob-o-link or ricebird, sparrow, yellow-bird, or phebe, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five dollars.

As in cases in other states previously, one of the barriers to bird protection legislation was the perceived triviality of the effort.

On its second reading there appeared to be in some quarters a disposition to ridicule the bill, as scarcely worthy the attention of so dignified a body, and the whole matter was spoken of as "small game." On the third reading, Mr. [Ethan Allen] Andrews of New Britain, endeavored to give a different turn to the debate and the feeling of members on the subject.

First, there was a technical problem with the list itself, which, if not fixed might have removed protection from a whole class of birds:

[He] expressed himself in approbation of the humane provisions of the bill, but proposed to amend by inserting the word "Woodpecker." The chairman replied that this was already in the bill, but the punctuation was defective. It should read, High Hole, Woodpecker, &c, and not high hole Woodpecker.

Then it was time to rehearse the arguments for bird protection that had been made repeatedly over the decades. Andrews drew directly from Linnaean balance-of-nature theory, even using the term, "economy of nature."

Mr. Andrews said he rose for the purpose of moving to add to the list of birds proposed to be protected by this bill the names of several others which had been omitted. He spoke of the great value and interest of the race of birds, not only account of their beautiful plumage and their delightful melody, but as forming a more important link in that chain by which the whole visible creation was united, and the comparative numbers of the various races of animals duly regulated.--They are designed to act a most important part in the economy of nature, by holding in check the tendency of the insect species to increase to myriads, and, like the locust of the east, to sweep from the earth every vestige of the vegetable creation. That such a tendency to increase on the part of the insect tribe actually existed , and that without the requisite checks the whole earth would be laid waste by them, was sufficiently apparent to all who had deeply reflected upon the subject.  But among the checks to this increase none were probably more important or efficacious than the feathered songsters of the fields and the groves. Ever in motion, with keen eye and eager appetite, they were every moment seizing upon their prey as it lurked beneath the bark of trees or crept over leaf or flower, and thus kept in check the most destructive enemy with which the farmer or the florist was called to contend. But while thus engaged as the farmer's most efficient coadjutor and friend, it was his misfortune almost everywhere to be treated like an enemy, and even to be persecuted for the very acts which most redounded to the benefit of man. 

The woodpecker (particularly the red-headed woodpecker) needed specific protection because it was commonly misperceived as an enemy, when it was actually a great friend of the horticulturalist and farmer. Andrews drew from a personal experience.

Mr. A. remarked that several years since while traveling in western Carolina and Virginia, he passed through a forest where the timber on some hundreds of acres was all dead and decaying. Inquiry was made of a countryman respecting the cause of the devastation. He replied that the trees had been killed by wood-peckers, which had been increasing in that neighborhood for some years, and though they had killed as many of them as possible, it was all to little purpose; that they were continually pecking the trees, until the forest far and wide was destroyed. This was a good exemplification of what our own farmers and their sons were constantly doing. These woodpeckers had doubtless been drawn together by the myriads of wood-worms, the grub of the Buprestes [jewel beetle] and other insects bred beneath the bark of the forest trees, and which were at that time engaged in devouring the fresh wood deposited beneath the bark of those trees. The real enemy was concealed from sight, and the friend who was searching out and destroying this enemy, wherever his keen ear detected their stealthy gnawings, was taken like the poor and faithful dog of Llewellyn, as the destructive foe, and like him consigned to swift destruction. So it was now with the blackbird, which was ever ready to follow the farmer through the furrowed field, and to seize upon the worm whose secret mischief was disturbed by the unexpected inroad of the ploughshare. Through every day of the long summer he plied his useful labor, but alas for his safety! It was said that sometimes in the early spring, while searching for the grub, which would so, if not detected, destroy the burned corn, he meets with a few, a very few kernels of that corn which his efforts are tending to protect, and he incontinently devours them.--

Woodpeckers needed their reputations defended so that their inclusion in the bill would not poison it for other birds.

Mr. A. wished that notwithstanding this sin of ignorance on the part of this useful bird, he could see in the House a disposition to protect his life from the wanton attacks everywhere made upon it; but he feared to propose it, lest it should bring the other little songsters into danger from being found associated in the same bill with a bird that had suffered so much in his good name. He would, however, venture to propose to add the woodpecker and a few other confessedly harmless tenants of our fields and forests. 

It was then William W. Boardman's turn, who combined the argument from natural theology with the civilizing effect of proper exposure to nature. Children must be taught to appreciate nature--the nation's reputation was on the line:

Mr. Boardman of New Haven said: It was some eminent genius, I think it was Goethe [confirmed], who said, "The works of nature are ever to me a freshly uttered word of God." I sympathize earnestly in that sentiment. We are everywhere overwhelmed wit the proofs of the power and goodness of that God who has made all nature beauty to the eye and music to the ear. Our brilliant sun, and clear, pure air, which even Italy can surpass; our gorgeous sunsets; the dark luxuriance of our forests; the rich and varied products of our teeming soil, are ever objects of grateful contemplation in the morning's dawn or the evening twilight--At such moments nothing so lifts the hear with gratitude, and often the eye with tears, as the free joyous singing of the birds in the garden and orchard. It stirs the purest, gentlest, sweetest, sympathies of our nature. It civilizes and refines the heart--and if I were desirous of educating a youth for happiness and usefulness, I would begin and never cease teaching him to admire and love the beautiful and wonderful works of God. It is easily taught--let the father or the friend give tongue to his own thoughts in the hearing of the boy, and tell him what to admire in the painting of the sunset, the melody of the grove, the beauty of the flowers, the forms and tints of the landscape, the music of the restless ocean--no lessons can be more permanent or effective. If generally taught, we should soon redeem our national reputation from the charge of a want of taste and refinement. We are called at times a nation of young barbarians, and, although the charge is not true, I am sorry to say there is something to make it out of. There is no people in the civilized world among whom the destructive tendency is so prominent as in the young American--nothing escapes his gun and his knife. In the grounds of the capitol at Washington, a beautiful flower, raised with great care and expense, cannot be preserved a minute without the constant vigilance of the police. Now in the gardens of the Tuileries and the Schoenbrun, the most exquisite productions of nature and art are exposed, every day, within reach of the eyes and hands of hundreds and millions, who love and admire them more than our people could possibly do, and yet not a flower is ever touched. Such beautiful objects are regarded with a veneration that removes all fear of injury. Public opinion founded on cultivated public taste is the best possible security. Children can be taught to love or hate anything. The Lapland boy of ten years delights himself, above all things, with blubber--and the first real feast of the Northern soldiery, upon their entrance into Paris, was made upon the oil of the street lamps [fueled by whale oil]. It is easier to cultivate a taste for the true and beautiful. Let the school master, in our primary schools, himself feel in his own heart the beauty and magnificence of the works of God, and speak of them to his boys with the enthusiasm they ought to inspire, and which led the Psalmist [107:15] to exclaim," Oh that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness, and declare the wonders that he doeth for the children of men!" I would require it as a school exercise--every new day, every declining sun, should bring its glow of gratitude and admiration. Thus should we strike at the root of the destructive propensity of our boys, and implant in tis stead a love of the beautiful in nature and art, a source of never-failing enjoyments. In the meantime, sir, let us punish the young barbarian for destroying the singing birds, and, if he has no feeling himself, compel him to respect that of his civilized neighbors.

Edmund G. Howe, apologizing for appearing to have made light of the bill earlier, used Boardman's remarks to make a special appeal for sanctuaries for birds, whether public parks modeled after the French example [the establishment of Central Park in New York was still a few years away], or private residences.

Mr. Howe of Hartford said: I should not have detained the House by any remarks of mine upon the bill now under consideration, had not a few words which I playfully spoke the other day when it was under consideration, been received by the chairman who reported the bill as designed to cast ridicule upon it. Nothing was further from my intention, and on the spot I so stated privately to him, and I now desire before the House to utterly disclaim any such design on my part, and to say, from the bottom of my heart, I desire its passage. The gentleman from New Haven has alluded, most appropriately and impressively, to the different habits of the people of Europe as compared with our own in relation to the subject now before us; and most touchingly has be portrayed to us the sacredness with which, from their education and habits of life, all classes are accustomed to preserve their public parks and gardens; and in this particular how unfavorably our own American citizens compare! It must be observed by every intelligent American, in his visits to that country, and I think nothing coming under his observation arrests his attention quicker, or strikes him more forcibly, than when, on his first visit to Paris, as he walks in an afternoon to the extensive gardens of the Tuileries, in its centre, and beholds them filled, at great expense, with the choicest and rarest plants and flowers, as well as rare domesticated birds, all open to the public, frequented by all classes at their will, still remaining untouched and unharmed. It is a beautiful sight, sir, to see the citizen in humble life, with his little family around him, towards the close of the day, enjoying there, free as air, the beauties of that lovely and enchanting spot; and there, sire, germ and grown the finer sensibilities of our nature. And now, sir, if there is one propensity which I would eradicate from the breast of my children, it is that which leads them to destroy the feathered warblers which frequent our fields and parks, or our gardens; and while I would not unreasonably abridge the sports or pastime of my friends from our country towns, I ask them confidently, sir, to aid us in the passage of such laws as will enable large towns so fortunate as to have parks, or private individuals residing in them so much blessed as to have ground attached to their residences, that the little songsters that frequent them may be protected from the ruthless hand of the destroyer, and thus be preserved one of the dearest and most ennobling accompaniments to our earthly residence that God has given us.

Then there was a curious move against the brown thrasher [not normally considered a harmful bird], immediately countered. It was this exchange that evidently inspired Longfellow.

Mr. [Harris R.] Burr, of Killingworth, moved to erase the long tailed thrush, as he was an arrant corn thief.

To this there was a general murmur of disapprobation--several exclaiming, "No, now! do spare the Thrush!"

Mr. Boardman: I hope not, sir. The thrush is the sweetest of our singers, the prima donna of our troupe. When he sings with a full heart, the whole air is filled to intoxication with his gushing melody. He is greatly superior to the nightingale of England, and even the Swedish Nightingale [Jenny Lind, who was on tour in the U.S.]  herself has listened to him with perfect admiration and despair. Could I have every thrush in the State on my own grounds, most cheerfully would I feed them for a tithe of the melody that they furnish to the gentleman of Killingsworth every day.

Mr. Burr replied that he was well aware that the thrush was one of the sweetest songsters in nature's grand choir, yet it was nevertheless true that he was a great annoyance to the farmer, and he was therefore reluctantly compelled to move to strike out his name.

Mr. Andrews, of New Britain, said that though he was a farmer and the son of a farmer, he had never heard anything said until this morning against the character of the thrush. In his part of the State this beautiful bird bore an excellent reputation, and if in any other section he had lapsed into dishonest habits, it must have been because in those sections he had fallen into bad company. He should be very sorry to see him stricken from the bill.

The old story of catastrophe following the destruction of birds was invoked:

Mr. Boardman: One word more, Mr. Speaker. A great diversity of opinion exists among farmers concerning the depredations committed upon their crops by birds. A law was once enacted in Virginia offering a bounty for the destruction of the crows that destroyed their corn. A war of extermination followed and of the corn also; for in many districts the ravages of the worms were such, after the removal of the crows, that the farmers would gladly have paid back their money if they could have established the dynasty of the crows again.  

Mr. Burr again insisted that the thrush was the cause of much mischief in the farmers' cornfields, and appealed to the farmers present to sustain his position.
Mr.  [Russell] Benton of Guillford, said he was one of the farmers appealed to, and desired to say he had never heard the thrush evil spoken of; he was of opinion that if they disturbed the corn in Killingworth, it was because the land was so poor that it would not produce worms. 

Ultimately, though, the bill's emphasis on trespassers meant that it would not be putting limits on farmers to make decisions on their own.

Mr. [Gurdon] Trumbull, of Stonington, remarked that this law did not restrain people from killing birds on their own lands, but was designed to curtail the liberties of those lawless intruders who are fired with an insatiable ambition to destroy harmless birds on others' premises.

Amendment lost.

Then it was the kingbird's turn [remember Wilson's account]:

Mr. [Jeremiah] Olney, of Thomson, moved to amend by erasing the word king-bird, as he had a bad reputation among the honey-bees.  

Several persons objected, on the ground that this bird was an enemy to the whole insect race; while the honey-bee constituted but a moiety of his prey, and while he has the reputation of a King, he showed his hatred of despotism, by pulling the hair of Hawks, Crows, and other lawless desperadoes and could not be well spared. The good he did far overbalanced the evil. 

Mr. [Richard H.] Phelps, of Windsor, coincided with the remarks of other gentlemen. He thought the birds did more good than harm, and he wished any gentleman whose fields were troubled by them to call upon him and he would tell them how to obviate the mischief without killing them.

Amendment lost.

Charles Osgood made what might have been a controversial move. (Here it is a shame that more of the exact transcript was not preserved).

Mr. Osgood of Pomfret moved to insert the black bird. 

It seemed to be conceded that this cunning bird, either on account of his complexion, or his tendency to socialism, was subjected to unmerited odium. Others considered him the same little rascal in a black jacket as formerly, and not like to improve by legislation. 

Mr. Boardman said that, though he believed the black-bird to be one of the farmer's best friends, still his bad reputation, if the amendment should be adopted, might tend to defeat the bill.  

Amendment adopted.

Showing the overlap between this bill and existing game laws, the bobwhite was next to be added:

Mr. Osgood moved to amend further by inserting the quail. He was for putting an end to the poaching propensities of certain professional hunters, who go strolling over other people's premises, banging away at everything, and thus endangering the lives of the people in the rural districts. 

Some one thought the quail already protected by the laws respecting game; if was not, it ought by all means to be inserted in the bill. 

Amendment adopted.

Then to some uncontroversial birds, quickly added:

Mr. Godfrey, of Fairfield, moved to insert the humming bird. Adopted. 

And amendment in favor of the wren was also adopted. 

Then Harris Burr, who had moved to eliminate the brown thrasher, made an even more controversial gesture. (One wonders if this was a tactic to undermine the bill itself).

Mr. Burr moved to insert the crow. He knew that by many he was regarded as an unmitigated scoundrel, but he thought he had done more good than was generally supposed, and should be protected. The Crow was declared not to belong to "certain small birds," and was regarded as an unmitigated scoundrel, and withal able to "take care of himself," and so he was almost unanimously voted out of the house.

 Amendment lost.

Finally, one more addition (there could conceivably have been dozens more, so it is unclear why they stopped here):

Mr. Boardman said that, at the suggestion of an eminent naturalist, he wished to add the rose-breasted grosbeak [the Palladium here has, bizarrely, the "golden-breasted" grosbeak]. It was a beautiful bird which had recently made its appearance in the gardens in this vicinity. 

Amendment adopted, and bill as amended passed. 

This was a genuine "bird trial," with actual effects on the prospects of actual birds. Unlike crow trials reported in the past, it was taken seriously, and included expert opinion. 

Henry Ward Beecher answers "What's a bird good for?" (1850)

In 1850, shortly after the passage of the New Jersey "small birds" law, the New York Independent ran an article by Henry Ward Beecher, one of the most prominent speakers and social reformers of the day, praising the law. Titled, "The Value of Birds," it began with a news item summarizing the law, and then asked:

What's a bird good for? What dainty sentimentalism has set a Legislature at such enactments? Not so fast. Although we should greatly respect a legislature that had the humanity to think of birds among other constituent bipeds, yet experience has taught farmers and gardeners the economic value of birds. 

There are no such indefatigable entomologists as birds. Audubon and Wilson never hunted for specimen birds with the perserverance that birds themselves exhibit in their researches. They depasture the air, penetrate every nook and corner of thicket, hedge and shrubbery, they search the bark, pierce the dead wood, glean the surface of the soil, watch for the spade-trench, and follow the furrow after worms and larvae. A single bird in one season destroys millions of insects for its own food and that of its nest. No computation can be made of the insects which birds devour. We do not think of another scene more inspiriting that the plowing season, in this respect. Bluebirds are in the tops of the trees practising the scales, crows are cawing as they lazily swing through the air toward their companions in the tops of distant dead and dry trees; robins and blackbirds are wide awake, searching every clod that the plow turns, and venturesome almost to the farmer's heels. Even boys relent, and seem touched by the birds' appeal to their confidence, and until small fruits come, spare the birds. Bobolinks begin to appear, the buffoon among birds, and half sing and half fizzle. How our young blood sparkled amid such scenes, we could not tell why; neither why we cried without sorrow or laughed without mirth, but only from a vague sympathy with that which was beautiful and joyous. 

Were there ever such neat scavengers? Were there ever such nimble hunters? Were there ever such adroit butchers? No Grahamitic [vegetarian] scruples to agitate this seed-loving and bug-loving tribe. They do not show their teeth to prove they were designed for meat. They eat what they like, wipe their mouths on a limb, return thanks in a song, and wing away to a quiet nook to doze or meditate, snug from the hawk that spheres about far up in the ether. To be sure, birds, like men, have a relish for variety. There are no better pomologists. If we believed in transmigration we should be sure that our distinguished fruit culturists could be traced home.  

[Nicholas] Longworth was a brown thrasher; [A. J.] Downing a lark, sometimes in the dew and sometimes just below the sun; [J. J.] Thomas was a plain and sensible robin; junior [William] Prince was a bobolink, irreverently called skunk-blackbird; [A. H.] Ernst a dove; [Samuel] Parsons a woodpecker; [Marshall] Wilder a kingbird. We could put our finger, too, upon that human blackbird, wren, bluejay and small owl--but prudence forbids; as it also does the mention of a certain clerical mockingbird that makes games of his betters. 

But we wander from the point. We charge every man with positive dishonesty who drives birds from his garden in fruit time. The fruit is theirs as well as yours. They took care of it as much as you did. If they had not eaten egg, worm and bug, your fruit would have been pierced and ruined. They only come for wages. No honest man will cheat a bird of his spring and summer's work.

Beecher, by this point, already occupied the prestigious position of pastor of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn; later in the year he would write his famous diatribe against the "Compromise of 1850," which had strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act. Beecher's bird article was widely reprinted and was collected in the 1855 volume of his writing, Star Papers, or Experiences of Art and Nature. The bird protection movement was now bolstered by the highest level of writing and rhetoric. 

Beecher, in fact, had been for several years in the 1840s, the editor of Indiana-based Western Farmer and Gardener, an agricultural monthly associated with the Indiana Journal. His pieces for that publication were eventually collected in a volume, Plain and Pleasant Talk about Fruits, Flowers, and Farming, published in 1859. While we can place Beecher among the "bird-friendly editors," he actually didn't have much to say about bird protection in that publication. 

This was not true in the articles for the Independent collected in Star Papers, where he aimed his words (and imaginary armaments) against "shooters from the city:" 

We are guiltless of shooting, and seldom feel an impulse to explode powder, except when we see respectable city stupidities killing little singing-birds. We sometimes feel an inclination then to shoot the unmannerly fowler. No gentleman would shoot a singing-bird. (p. 239)

And noting that "robins [were] gathering in flocks in orchards, and preparing for their southern flight, prayed:

May his gun for ever miss fire that would thin the ranks of singing-birds! (p. 331)

For Beecher, birds were not just "useful." Throughout Star Papers, he described how natural settings and birdsong were sources of spiritual renewal:

Often when extremely depressed I have gone to the parks or out of the city to some quiet ground, where I could find a wooded stream, and the wood filled with birds, and found, almost in a moment, a new spirit coming over me. I was rid of men--almost of myself. I seemed to find a sacred sweetness and calmness, not coming over me but into me. (p. 79)

Mirroring the priorities of birders today, when Beecher travelled to England:

among the many things which I determined to see and hear in England were the classic birds, and especially the thrush, the nightingale and the lark; after these I desired to see cuckoos, starlings and rooks. (p. 34)

Beecher, after some trouble, would actually see and hear his skylark. Unsuccessful efforts had already been made to introduce the starling (and skylark) to the New York City area.