Two new Winged Wardens pages: Comprehensive index and Birds of Killingworth

Alas, the summer is almost over (says the department chair who needs to prepare for the fall semester and write an academic paper or two). So regular posts to this blog will cease for the time-being.

If you look at the side-bar to the right, you will see two new pages. One is a comprehensive list of all Winged Wardens posts so far. The second is the complete text of "Birds of Killingworth," a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, first published in 1863.

The Longfellow poem was once well-known in bird protection circles and was a staple of "Bird Day" programs during the Nature Study era. In addition to giving this blog its name (it really should be "Wingéd Wardens"), the poem references many things that should be familiar to careful readers of this blog, from the New England blackbird legend (its chief narrative frame), to specific arguments in favor of and against bird protection. It even incorporates the role of newspapers in the debate. I encourage a slow reading. 

On Editors and Crows (1843)

On January 11, 1843, the New England Farmer published a letter from "An Essex Farmer," in response to its reply to the correspondent challenging its crow experiment (last post).  While the letter departed from the scientific theme of the original, it does show how certain values were projected onto newspapers advocating the protection of controversial birds. The letter was run under the heading, "On Editors and Crows."

In reading your reply to the inquiry, I thought you manifested too much of that disposition so common among editors of newspapers of late. I refer to the practice of defending the guilty from punishment, and of accusing all those who inflict that punishment which justice demands, of being hard-hearted and cruel. Who can read what has appeared in some of the papers respecting Colt and Spencer, and not see that they are endeavoring to awaken sympathy in behalf of the guilty, instead of holding them up as examples to deter others from crime?

Mercy to the guilty is often cruelty to the rest of society;--and your reply to the communication of your correspondent of "Hull" shows that there is no character so black but what it may find an advocate among the editors of newspapers. 

Note: "Colt and Spencer" referred to two recent cases heavily covered in the press. The first was the case of John C. Colt, accounting textbook author and brother of gun-maker Samuel Colt, who was found guilty of murdering his of printer Samuel Adams in 1841 and sentenced to be executed. The second was the case of Philip Spencer, son of the current Secretary of War, who was summarily executed in 1842 following a mutiny conspiracy on a US Navy vessel. Both cases produced controversy. Colt (who had effectively introduced double-entry book-keeping to the US) was widely thought to have killed Adams in self-defense; the hanging-without-trial of Spencer was thought to be cruel and unjust. Regardless of the specifics, the writer linked the crow defender with the anti-death penalty position of many "benevolence" leaders, and apparently, newspaper editors.

The writer actually framed his argument in terms of bird protection. Unlike useful insectivorous songbirds, crows, in addition to being thieves, were murderers. 

Now it appears to me that your mercy for the crow is cruelty to the rest of the feathered tribe. Although by feeding him we may protect our cornfields against is depredation, yet will he not go directly from the field where he has been fed, and murder a whole family of young robins?…Did you ever think that the reason why the robin builds her nest so near our dwellings was, to be protected from the crow? And can we feed and protect him, without betraying that confidence which the innocent birds repose in us?

You tell us in one paper to "spare the birds," and then in another that you will feed and protect the crow, who will destroy the eggs and the young of all he can find.

You may feed and protect the crow and listen to his continual and unmusical cry of haw, haw, haw--but you must be careful to keep him on your own premises, and not to permit him to prowl about the neighborhood, killing those useful birds which protect our orchards from insects, and make the air vocal with their melodious songs. 

"An Essex Farmer" had certainly taken the "spare the (useful and melodious) birds" message to heart, but, like many in the history of bird protection, resisted extending that protection to birds that preyed on other birds.

The New England Farmer's response, framed as a crow trial (now a minor genre of sorts), found the bird innocent of thievery (because it paid for its corn consumption with insect destruction) but guilty of murder.

Here we have a hard nut to crack….It was the crime of eating corn for which we begged he might not be destroyed, but left to eat the noxious worms also. Our defense of him thus far is hardly such as will expose us to the charge of trying to screen those guilty of enormous crimes, from the punishment they deserve…Pray do not think the black crow so black-hearted as the human murderer, because he pulls up corn. Do not class us with those of a sickly, if not of a wicked sympathy with the awfully guilty….But now--now the case is altered. Now you, "An Essex Farmer," accuse him of murder! This is a grave charge, and we suppose him guilty. 

Nevertheless, the Farmer rejected the death penalty for crows, and not for benevolence's sake. In respect to the highest level of law (Creation's), the crow was not guilty at all.

What is his plea why sentence of death should not be pronounced against him? Hear what he says:--"Haw, haw, haw"--this is his plea; and being translated from crow language into plain English, it means this:--"He who made me, gave me an appetite for young robins, and the instinct in me which impels me to eat them is but the law of Him who made me…If the robins, whose instincts tell them to seek the protection of man, and build their nests where I dare not go, disregard those instincts, and hatch their young within my range, then, by our common Maker's law, they are my legitimate food…I did only my duty; and black as my outside is, in heart I am much more of a Mackenzie [Spencer's commander who had him executed] than of a Colt or a Spencer." 

Such is the interpretation of his speech. This is his defence. And has he not defended us too? He has cracked the nut. 

Ultimately, the frame of human morality was unavoidable but inadequate when it came to judging birds (one of the reasons why the "crow trial" has an inevitable satiric quality). The portrayal of song birds killed by hunters as the "slaughter of innocents (who only want to cheer us with their music)" had been an effective rhetorical device against wanton killing but licensed the execution of birds of prey. Papers like the New England Farmer were indeed placed in a difficult position when it came to defending those birds precisely because their previous pleas to "spare the birds" had been so successful. 

A Call for Scientific Evidence (1842)

In the September issue of the New Genesee Farmer (the "old" Genesee Farmer had merged with the Cultivator), the bird protection controversy was directly addressed. "J," under the heading, "Spare the Birds," assessed the conflict as follows:

A sort of skirmish has been going on for some time past between the advocates of the birds on one hand, and the friends of unmangled fruit on the other; the one maintaining that all the depredations of the feathered race on the products of their orchards are immensely overbalanced by the hordes of pestiferous insects they destroy; while the others say that the good they do is greatly overrated, and that even those insects which they do eat, are more commonly of the harmless kind, the more destructive affording not quite such delicate morsels, and as a consequence remaining untouched. Now all this contention would much better become the mode of philosophical inquiry adapted by philosophers of former centuries, who tried to investigate the operations of nature by abstract reasoning in their closets instead of observation in the open air.

"They could tell what time of day
The clock would strike, by Algebra [Ben Jonson]

and some of them went so far as to get into long and angry quarrels whether two angels or spirits could actually occupy the same mathematical point at the same time!!

As the New England Farmer had indicated earlier, it was best to leave values (anti-cruelty or aesthetics, e.g,) aside and frame the conflict on the basis of a single question: whether or not certain birds destroyed sufficient numbers of harmful insects to be considered "useful." This could not be resolved by an exchange of opinions. One needed facts.

Common sense teaches that when anything is to be ascertained in the natural world, the right way to do it is by direct observation and experiment, not by splitting hairs and dove tailing syllogisms. If you want to know which way the wind blows, why, go outdoors and see; or how many bushels of wheat you have to the acre, measure it; argument and guessing will not avail much. So with the bird controversy: instead of battling it out on paper, resort to direct examination. Watch their operations, and see what they eat; dissect their stomachs and see what they have swallowed; and let not hasty examination suffice. The experiments must be repeated, and repeated, and repeated,--in all seasons and at all places: and then we shall not work in the dark, but know which are our enemies and which our friends; which are devouring the noxious and which the harmless insects; and properly estimate the pleasures of their singing, while we are sighing for the loss of our fine fruit which they have just swallowed. 

This was essentially a call for what would come to be called "Economic Ornithology." It would still be several years before this project would be institutionalized. 

The New England Farmer, for its part, had already begun including accounts of experiments with birds as part of its overall coverage of agricultural experimentation. In its May 18, 1842 issue, it reported its own project dealing with crows. That crows can be destructive to corn was acknowledged:

We have recently written, and inserted much that others have written, in favor of sparing the birds. We did this with a distinct knowledge and remembrance that crows and blackbirds often make sad and provoking ravages in the cornfield soon after the corn comes up. A few crows will sometimes pull up most of the corn on an acre of ground in a few days. But this is the only time of the season of the year…when they do the farmers of this vicinity much if any harm. Their food during the remainder of the year, consists mostly of worms and other matters which we are entirely willing to have devoured.

The author went on to suggest a variety of means, some more successful and humane than others, of preventing the crows from digging up young corn, including "broadcasting" a peck of good corn so that crows won't bother to dig up new corn. Thus the experiment:

This year one pair have built their nest immediately by the side of our corn field, and we have requested that they not be disturbed. We have so much confidence that they will be of more service to us in the course of the season, than it will cost us to feed them upon corn sown for the purpose for three or four weeks….Our nearer neighbor last year, saved his crop unharmed, by taking this course, though the crows were abundant in his fields.

If you fed corn directly to crows during the sowing period, would that keep them away from young corn?

On December 21, 1842, the New England Farmer ran a letter from a dubious correspondent, challenging the paper to disclose the results of the experiment.

Sir--I, in common with your readers generally, I presume, have been both entertained and instructed by your published details of experiments made by you the past season, in processes and means of cultivating the earth. There is one experiment, however, which you proposed to make (and in which I feel no little interest,) whose success you have not yet reported….If you had forgotten the matter, this gentle "jog" to your memory may be of some service to your readers… 

Now I am very desirous to learn how this benevolent experiment of yours resulted, since it may have settled one, and not the least important, of the many disputed questions in agriculture….And in making the inquiry, I disclaim being actuated by any less frivolous motive than a desire to know if, (as I have never believed,) there is any thing of wisdom or profit in treating with civility and forbearance those black-hued and no less black-hearted pilferers and disgrace of the feathered tribe, yclept crows--toward whom (though I can applaud your humanity,) I cannot but act in the spirit of the lex talionis [the law of retaliation], so long as they manifest such an utter disregard of the laws of meum and tuum [what's mine and what's yours]. If your experiment, however, has demonstrated that these troublesome outlaws may be bought to respect one's rights, then if the price be not too high, I shally most gladly pay the tribute, in lieu of resorting to the "murderous saltpetre." With high respect, I. Killem (Hull)

The Farmer responded directly to the request. The experiment had been a success.

Thank you for the "jog," Mr. "Killem." when we stated that we should not disturb the said crows, we said also that we should feed them. We did so: they ate of what we gave them, and they did no harm to the cornfield. So much for the experiment, to you, Mr. "Killem", from "Hull." There's the whole story. …

As, was common practice in the Farmer, the editor could not result having fun with the author's chosen pseudonym. 

What seer, gifted with prophetic sight, gave you your name, so descriptive of your disposition? Cruel, faithless, murderous man! Right was you named, "I Killem." Kill 'em, then, if such is your innate and cherished propensity--but we'll feed'em again.

Values were clearly still relevant to this conversation, despite the focus on the "facts" of the matter.

A prejudice in favor of birds?

Volume One (1842) of the Transactions of the New York State Agricultural Society featured an article by David Thomas of Cayuga County, titled "The Fruit Garden." This article was reprinted in other agricultural publications, including the Farmer's Register (June 30, 1842).  Among Thomas's remarks about the cultivation of fruit trees were some comments criticizing the bird protection cause. 

Many people have a prejudice in favor of birds [my emphasis] that no well balanced mind should entertain. "Denizens of the air," have no more right to our property than denizens of the earth. Plunderers on two legs are not more respectable than plunderers on four legs; and cedar birds are entitled to no more regard than rats, unless personal beauty can atone for moral deformity.

This prejudice had biased the perceptions of bird-lovers.

Ornithologists often become partial to the subjects of their study, and side with them against the farmer and the gardener--magnifying their services [my emphasis] and overlooking their trespasses. The laborer, indeed, may drive the geese from his cabbages, throw stones at the crows, and even shoot a hawk--but not the birds that devour his cherries?

As critics previously had asserted, it was important to be judicious in one's targets. 

An amiable writer [Robert Manning], in reference to such visitors, says, "Such has been the security they have felt in our grounds, and so great their increase, that not only cherries, gooseberries, and currants, but apples, pears, and plums, have been ravaged; and it may become a matter for serious consideration whether in continuing our protection, we do not risk the total loss of some of the most desirable appendages to the dessert." Now if called into council, our advice would be prompt and brief: Treat them according to their doings. Make pies of the robins, orioles, and cedar birds [my emphasis]--one chicken is worth a dozen of them for business; but save and protect the blue birds, warblers, and sparrows--these are always our friends.

Note that Robert Manning, who we've heard from previously, was actually more tolerant of the depredations of cedar waxwings than Thomas suggests.

Thomas's remarks against bird protection did not go un-noticed. In an otherwise positive review of the article in the August 1842 Cultivator, L.A. Morrel drew attention to them. 

I must take an exception...to one of friend Thomas' recommendations, which is not in keeping with his kind and benevolent nature, for which he is so much distinguished, namely: destroying birds which pilfer our fruit. He say, "treat them according to their doings. Make pies of the robins, orioles, and cedar birds…"Now I am not distinguished for "womanish" feelings [my emphasis], but I declare I have not the heart to kill a bird of any sort; no, not even crows, for they are useful to the farmer, and can easily be prevented or deterred from doing any mischief to our corn fields, by suspending twine at intervals along and within the enclosure. When seeing the cedar bird nibbling at the cherries, often have I said to myself there is enough for us both; and with Uncle Toby, when he let go the fly, there is, also, "room in the world for us both." No, spare the birds, "nature's songsters," and the farmer's best friends.

Note: "Uncle Toby" was a character described in Laurence Stern's Tristram Shandy. The relevant passage is as follows:

My uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly.—Go—says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzz'd about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time,—and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him;—I'll not hurt thee, says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going a-cross the room, with the fly in his hand,—I'll not hurt a hair of thy head:—Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;—go poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?—This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

This character,  like Cowper and his worm, became a standard reference to (perhaps unreasonable) benevolence toward "inferior beings." I've emphasized Morrel's reference to "womanish" feelings--in this case denied--as one more piece of evidence of the gendering of bird protection.

In the September 1842 issue of the Cultivator, "A Fruit Man" responded to Morrel's criticisms, once again under the heading of "Spare the Birds." As with Thomas, the implication was that bird protectors were biased in their emphasis of one part of creation, allowing for depredations that would never be tolerated coming from other sorts of animals.

I observe in the last number of the Cultivator, that your interesting correspondent L.A. Morrell, has taken up the cause of the birds, and objects, "in all cases whatsoever," to their destruction. In controverting, however, the recommendation of the writer of the essay to which he alludes, I should have been better pleased had he given the reasons with that recommendation. Can he object to the writer's logic, where he says, "Denizens of the air" have no more right to our property than denizens of the earth. Plunderers on two legs are not more respectable than plunderers on four legs…" If birds, who destroy whole crops of fine cherries, are to be protected; then I wish, will all respect to your correspondent, to ask him, if the dogs that destroy his sheep, are not also to be protected? I ask him to permit me to copy one part of his communication, only altering the word, "bird," to that of dog: 

"Now, I am not distinguished for "womanish" feelings, but I declare I have not the heart to kill a dog of any sort; when seeing them gnawing at the sheep and lambs, often have I said to myself, there is mutton enough for us both; and with Uncle Toby, when he let go the fly, there is also, room in the world for us both." 

I should hardly think, that even your correspondent would approve of carrying the theory and practice of protection so far as this; but I really for the life of me, cannot see why they are not as applicable in one case as in the other. … Are dogs, who equally fulfill their animal instinct in destroying sheep, with birds in in destroying fruit, to be shot down with the rifle, while the birds are to be spared? The cultivator of a fine orchard, has in general, expended labor and money, no less than the owner of a flock of sheep, and values no less the fruit of his exertions; and why is it then, that when the toil of years is about to be crowned with its reward, he must see the whole snatched from before his eyes, without being permitted to lift a finger, while the sheep man, even if one solitary individual of his flock is in danger, can call out all his forces and punish with instant death, the destroyer of his own property? If I do not argue soundly, I am sorry, and ask to be corrected.

"A Fruit Man's" analogy may seem a little forced, and indeed, he himself seemed to be a little uncertain about it. To modern readers, the analogy may in fact work the opposite way--shouldn't we also protect dogs from being shot? Nevertheless, in both cases, the depredations represented "the toil of years...snatched from before his eyes." From a strictly rational economic point of view, the killing of some birds was justified and bird protectors were unreasonable and biased in wanting no birds to be killed. 

"Spare the Birds," or Kill Them?

On July 6, 1842 the New England Farmer published on its front page the counter bird protection missive it had apparently been waiting for. Titled "'Spare the birds,' or kill them?" the author, "Justice, of East Haddan, Conn.," began by referencing the increasingly common slogan for the movement:

Mr. Editor--Sir--We have become almost as familiar with the phrase, "Spare the birds," as we have with the doctrine that we should spare the life of the murderer. 

The hawk comes down, and kills and carries off my poultry: the response of the newspapers is, "spare the birds." 

My currants, my strawberries, and my cherries, are not yet half ripe, but while I am writing, the crested larks [cedar waxwings], and other robbers, are carrying them off, and destroying the whole crops, without showing the least disposition to leave me even a tithe of them. But instead of this, for my comfort when I take up a newspaper and learn from its pages, that in the legislature of Connecticut, Dr. D., of N., has done honor both to his head and his heart, by delivering himself of a plea that the people would "spare the birds."

It wasn't only hawks and cedar waxwings that caused trouble, but barn swallows and chimney swifts as well.

If I leave my carriage in my barn, who can count the number of the places which will be defiled by the swallows, which build their nests in barns? When I wish for rest, the chimney swallows pay no regard to my need of repose, and they thunder along the flues of the chimney, frequently giving us an idea of the rattling of coaches, the sound of distant artillery, or the rumbling of an earthquake.

He went on to describe the damage done by birds to his raspberries, cherries, mulberries, grapes, green peas, corn, etc. Then he turned his attention to the typical defenses of birds among would-be protectors:

"But the birds sing!" True, they seem to fly away very joyously, and pour forth their songs in great glee, after they have robbed me of my treasures; but I had much rather have joy, and smiles, and songs, in my family, all called forth by the enjoyment of the luxuriant fruits which I have cultivated at so much expense… 

But, say the pseudo-benevolent bird praisers, the birds catch the insects. But is this true to any valuable extent? The caterpillars, of various kinds eat up our trees, and eat they may, for what the birds do, or for what the birds care; and I have never known but one kind of bird to show any disposition to touch the caterpillars at all--and that kind of bird rarely meddles with them. The buzzing beetles are nearly as thick as hail stones in a shower, but I never knew a bird to catch one of them….True, the birds sometimes catch a harmless dew worm, but the dew worms never eat or injure our vegetables or our fruits, that I know of. Thus the zeal to "spare the birds," seems, in effect, only to give us additional destroyers, and destroyers of no very small degree of activity. 

But why should we spare these robbers for their fine plumage or for their fine voices, any more than we would excuse any other thief for the commission of his crimes, because he also wore a fine coat, or had an agreeable voice. I had much rather eat good ripe strawberries, and cherries, and mulberries, and raspberries, and currants, than to lose all these for the sake of looking at fine feathers.

He concluded by asking the editor for some "justice" in their coverage of the topic, fearing that the "unreasonable rage" for bird protection would promote harmful legislation.

In short, Mr. Editor, if you do not kindly give us in your valuable paper, something on this subject which shall be on the side of justice, I fear that it will not be long before the unreasonable rage for the protection of the birds will be as great as the rage which formerly existed for the destruction of witches, and that it will not be long, before our legislators, forgetful of the protection of the constituents, will be found spending their time in legislating for the protection of birds, and in rendering it penal for us to defend our vegetable productions and our most valuable crops and fruits from the attacks of a certain class of robbers, especially if the robbers wear fine feathers and have fine voices.

The New England Farmer replied in turn:

Here we have it. We looked for a shot, though we knew not whence it would come. We are met openly and honorably, and the aim is true; but if we are brought down, we do not yet know it.

The Farmer called for submissions from both sides in the argument but affirmed its support for protection, acknowledging that not all the relevant facts were yet known. 

Soberly,--we knew when we cried "Spare the birds," that they will rob; and "Justice" has only pleasantly over stated the extent of their depredations. The question has two sides, and we are ready to admit to a defence of either to our columns. We still repeat, "Spare the birds"--because we believe it is easy to get from them more good than harm. The songs and the feathers we let pass: on the ground of profit and loss we are willing to stand….Most of the birds live much of the year upon insects, which if not thus thinned off, would greatly multiply--and as we think, would soon do us more harm than we now receive from the birds. Would they? This is the question. Neither side can be proved;--opinion is all that we can get. But there are facts that should have some influence in determining opinion. 

The editorial comment then pointed to the success of farmers in the Boston area who allowed birds to take cherries. The Farmer concluded by pledging its willingness to "go farther into the matter." 

Of particular interest, in addition to the counter-arguments, which have been aired before, is "Justice's" perception that newspapers were bird protection boosters. We've shown fairly clearly that this was true of most farm papers. It also seems to have been true of many general newspapers at the time. Indeed, if one looks at the article "Justice" cites about bird protection legislation in Connecticut, one may see a degree of editorializing that will be surprising for modern readers. The June 15 account in the Gazette, part of a longer summary of legislation before the general assembly in the summer of 1842, began with the usual dry chronology of bill readings, amendments, motions etc. but when it came to the support of the "small bird" section, the tone changed:

Mr. C[harles]. Douglass, with a warmth of feeling for the beautiful little birds which in the opinion of the reporter does honour to his heart, took up the gauntlet in their defense. He showed their benefit to the farmer in destroying the noxious insects which infested his farm, and the happiness they conferred on any one alive to the finer sensibilities of our nature, by dispensing music and song wherever they were permitted to roam. We say amen to the Doctor. 

The bill would pass, despite the efforts of "Mr. Beecher, of Bethlehem, [who] moved to strike out the second section, which prohibits the murder of the little songsters [my emphasis]."

Note: As in the case of the Massachusetts bird law, which called out "insectivorous birds" in its title but did not mention them (except for robins and larks) in its content, the "small bird" provision of the Connecticut law was encoded in the anti-trespassing section of the bill, which forbade the shooting of any bird without the permission of the land-owner during breeding season. 

Massachusetts Bird Laws redux (1842)

On May 2, 1842 the New England Farmer published a letter from a correspondent ("Snipe") under the heading, "Spare the Birds." Instead of the usual essay decrying the wanton destruction of useful birds, the author focused on the poaching of game birds. Instead of new bird protection laws, the author called for the enforcement of current laws.

I noticed with much pleasure several communications in your paper the last season, relative to the protection of birds. It is quite time that this subject should receive more attention, although the laws of this state for the protection of game and other birds, are sufficiently ample, provided it was anyone's duty to tend to the enforcement of them. A few prosecutions would soon put a stop to the wholesale destruction of birds at this season of the year.

Despite the close season in Massachusetts during breeding season, the spring shooting of marsh birds was still common. And despite the ban on the sale of these birds during close season, they were everywhere on display:

[I]n the month of May, (at which time the birds stop a few weeks on their way to their breeding-places in the north,) there have been more red-breasts, plovers and other marsh birds sold in the Quincy market in one week than there have been shot during the whole fall season.... [T]he dealers in market would hardly dare to expose them for sale, if they thought there was a chance of their being prosecuted.

"Snipe's" complaint was not about bird-killing per se, but about unseasonable and thus unsustainable bird-killing. There weren't enough to satisfy sportsmen in the fall.

At Barnstable, (where most of these bird come from in the spring,) the marshes are entirely deserted by them in the fall; --so much so, that the sportsman and others who generally resort to them in the fall, to recruit their health after a summer's work in town, did not the last year kill enough to eat:--(five years since a hundred birds a day was a fair allowance.)

If the law were not to be enforced officially, it might take heroic individuals to enforce it. "Snipe" pointed to a recent case in Martha's Vineyard where the shame of being revealed as a poacher was an effective disincentive. 

If no one else will attend to the prosecution of these poachers, I hope the sportsman will--and follow the good example of Dr. [whaling entrepreneur Daniel] Fisher of Edgartown, who rode one night last winter, thirty miles, after dark, to catch and convict the poachers who went to the Vineyard to shoot grouse [heath hen] for some of the eating houses in this city. Their names are generally known; I shall not repeat them, as I have heard that they are so ashamed of their being caught poaching, that they will not poach again in a hurry. That prosecution no doubt saved the lives of more than one thousand grouse the last winter.

The New England Farmer appended a supportive comment:

We hope…that some whose eyes may see these lines, will hear the voice of conscience reproaching them for their sins. Let us alone, say the birds--let the birds live, says the law--let them live, says humanity--let them live, says a better taste than the Epicurean appetite of the glutton. Yes, sportsman, fancy that the voice of "Snipe" is the voice of Him who made the birds, and cease from your deadly work.

The often-referenced bird protection laws of Massachusetts, as we've indicated previously, were game laws with a small exception--the protection of robins and meadowlarks during breeding season, although a section of the law addressing trespassing, did forbid the shooting of any bird "upon lands not owned or occupied by himself, and without license from the owner or occupant thereof" between March and July 4. As with game bird poachers, it is not clear how many wantonly killing "popping loafers" were actively prosecuted. Nevertheless, the Massachusetts game law became a kind of model law: a very similar statute (minus the robin and meadowlark), for example, was adopted in Connecticut in 1842 and in New Hampshire in 1846.

Without vigorous official enforcement it fell to individuals, grass-roots organizations, and the press to publicize the law and hold offenders accountable. On May 11, the New England Farmer printed the content of one such individual effort, a pamphlet titled "Protect the Birds," that had been printed and distributed by "a friend" who wished to unite farmers in his community against the "dangerous loafers who destroy the natural protectors of both fields and orchards." The pamphlet comprised extracts from a variety of sources about the usefulness of birds as well as the first two sections of Massachusetts's bird law.

By 1842, of course, the "usefulness" of birds was no longer the sole reason given for their protection. With the growth of benevolent societies and anti-cruelty movements, the fact that the law allowed (even promoted) bird shooting of any kind was problematic in some circles. In its May 11 issue, the New England Farmer published a vociferous response to "Snipe's" pleas. Instead of supporting his anti-poaching stance, the author ("J.H.D," a frequent contributor), took aim at sportsmen generally.  There was no difference, ultimately, between "sportsmen" and "loafers."

I read with some gratification the remarks of your correspondent "Snipe," ... in your last number. I honor his humanity--so much of that virtue as he manifests; but I regretted to perceive his apparently implied approval of the practice of shooting birds for sport. He is justly opposed to what he denominates poaching, while he seems to favor the custom of bird-killing by "sportsmen," as a genteel recreation, provided it be practiced in consonance with the requirements of the law. He thinks it justifiable, (I infer from the tenor of this remarks,) for "sportsmen and others" to proceed on a bird-shooting excursion in the fall, "to recruit their health after a summer's work in town." If I correctly understand his opinions as above expressed, I enter my protest against them. Permitted though it be by law, and sustained as it is by fashion, I regard this bird-killing sport as criminally inhuman--"a barbarous relic of a barbarous age"--and I regret to see it has an advocate in your correspondent "Snipe." It is associated in my mind with whatever is most repulsive to a benevolent heart. In my code of morals, the destroying of any of God's unoffending creatures for mere pastime, is a crime, in justification of which there is not a tenable circumstance; and those who are guilty of it, "gentlemen" though they be, and tacitly countenanced thought they may be by human law, are not a whit more deserving of favor or respect than the poaching depredator, upon whom "Snipe" pours out a vial of his wrath. 

This contribution was fully consistent with the thinking of anti-cruelty advocates such as Drummond and Wayland. Its appearance in the New England Farmer, minus any kind of reference to the usefulness of birds, signified an independent second stream of argument in the bird protection movement of the time. 

Francis Wayland joins his voice to the bird protection cause (1841)

4. Would it be right to shoot a robin, to see how correctly you could take aim?
5. Under what circumstances, would it be innocent to shoot a bird? (The Elements of Moral Science, School Edition, 1835)

Francis Wayland, moral philosopher, Baptist minister, and Brown University president, was one of Rhode Island's most prominent citizens. His book, The Elements of Moral Science, which deduced moral principles from Natural Law and Christian values, was a popular text nationwide; its chapter on "Our Duties to Brutes" was an influence on early anti-cruelty movements. Under the general heading of "Benevolence," or our obligations to inferior beings, he laid down strict rules governing human relationships with animals. As had other writers on the same topic, he allowed killing for human necessities, but killing for amusement and causing unnecessary pain were not only morally untenable, but destructive influences on one's character.

On October 6, 1841, Wayland addressed the Rhode Island Society for the Promotion of Domestic Industry. Near the end of a wide-ranging speech, he turned his attention to birds.

While speaking of poultry, allow me to add a single word respecting birds. I am fully convinced that the indiscriminate warfare which we wage upon this most beautiful and most useful part of our Creator's works is exceedingly to our own detriment. Birds were made, so far as the farmer is concerned with them, to check the growth of insects. Most admirably are they adapted to this purpose. How diligently are they employed from morning to night at their appointed labor. Scarcely ever at rest, unless they pause to cheer us with a song, they are hopping from twig to twig and flying from tree to tree to seek out the nests of those vermin, which, when they increase in great numbers, carry universal destruction in their course. It is true these laborers do us considerable damage. They now and then eat our cherries, and sometimes tear up our seed corn, but they abundantly repay us by the service which they perform during the remainder of the season. When I see an idle fellow strolling through the fields, waging war upon the robins, and black birds, and thrushes, and woodpeckers, now and then stealing a shot at a quail, or partridge, I cannot but feel indignant, remembering as I do, that whenever he does not miss, he destroys a being vastly more useful to the creation and therefore more respectable than himself.

Just remember what myriads of grubs and worms a robin, or a crow, or a woodpecker destroys in a season, and remember what an amount of grain those insects would have destroyed if they had been suffered to come to maturity. Audubon is so impressed with the value of birds in this respect as to affirm, that were there no crows we could have no corn, for it would be all be destroyed by the insects which the crow feeds upon. So he adds, were there no birds that eat cherries, we should have no cherries--the the worms would eat them all before us. 

Wayland, it should be noted, was a fan and patron of Audubon himself, praising his moral temper and enthusiasm.

Let us learn a lesson of wisdom in this respect. I wish that a law were passed prohibiting the shooting of all birds except such as are carnivorous [the raptor exception again]. I believe that until this is done, we shall be able to make no headway against insects. We may encircle our trees with lead, or with tin, we may anoint them with tar, or entwine them with straw, it will be all of no avail. The birds will do the work for us far cheaper and more effectually, and will give us their music into the bargain, music as good as that of the piano, though it cost not so much in the learning. 

I believe that such a law as I have spoken of, exists in Massachusetts. Would it not be well for us to follow her example. But whether such a law be passed or not, I hope that every farmer of Rhode Island will drive every bird-killer off from his farm, and teach his children to protect and foster these invaluable assistants that Heaven has in kindness sent him. We spend a large sum of money every year in providing means of protecting our trees from insects. Suppose a young fellow should amuse himself by going through our fields with a hatchet and destroying these attempts at protection. We should cause him to be arrested and punished immediately. But we allow him to kill our birds, though every bird is incomparably more valuable a protection from insects than all the artificial means that we can possible devise.

There were really no new arguments in Wayland's address but his ability to isolate the essentials (no cherry eaters, no cherries; bird killers are vandals) and the fact that a figure of his prominence would support the cause make his contributions noteworthy. Large portions of the address were reprinted in the New England Farmer (January 12, 1842) and the bird portions (under the heading "Spare the birds") were reprinted in Mother's Monthly Journal (May 1842). 

Spare the skunk and the snake and the squirrel, but not the smoking loafer (1841)

In its March 1841 issue, the (Albany) Cultivator ran a letter from Solomon W. Jewett announcing "A Remedy for the Grain Worm." Jewett's remedy involved skunks.

I prepared some boys with traps and hired them to catch an animal well known in these parts by the name of skunk. They caught two or these noxious animals, which I hung up in two different parts of my wheat field [my emphasis] about the height of the grain heads; and the result proved on strict examination that within a circle of several rods around these animals, no larvae or grain worm could be found, and at the same time in other parts of field, some considerable intrusions of the worm were noticed...The contrast as I suppose was occasioned by the strong effluvia that spread in all directions over it. 

It wasn't strictly necessary to hang up skunks for this effect; one could simply take their scent sacks, mix them in a jar with twine, and at the appropriate time string the twine across the field. Jewett, incidentally, was an extremely successful Vermont farmer, but a notorious eccentric.

The Maine Farmer (edited by noted agricultural educator Ezekiel Holmes) ran a letter from a correspondent  ("T.P.") in response to the Cultivator article defending the skunk:

If the farmer could but know the amount of the beetle and other insects one of these animals will destroy in the season of them, he would never think of trapping them to string up in his field.

Instead, T.P. suggested facetiously, a certain two-legged mammal would do the job:

Sir, if I had a wish to cage an animal to keep up a nauseous effluvia for the purpose of driving the fly from my grain, I would catch some of the smoking loafers which infest our villages, that the industrious part of the community have to support, say four of them, and furnish them with "long-nine" cigars, and cage one on each side of the field, so that they cannot do one another mischief, and my word for it, I would rid society of a useless animal, and raise an effluvia that will be more disgusting to the flies and a surer protection to the wheat, than the scent of the quadruped named above.

In a comment appended to the article, Holmes responded:

His skunkship is beginning to be duly appreciated. The substitute which our friend recommends is a good one--but won't it drive all the skunks from the farm too, as well as the weevils?

The New England Farmer, in its May 5 issue reprinted the exchange, appending its own request:

If it can be demonstrated that the skunk is a useful animal, we would move, as an act of justice, that a little more euphonious cognomen be applied to him than the one which he at present bears in the nomenclature of quadrupeds. Can't Dr. Holmes, of the Maine Farmer, suggest a name for the creature which will be more expressive of his character and less repulsive to the ear than that of skunk?

Unlike birds, whose defense was usually deadly serious, the usefulness of the skunk was an opportunity for humor.

Meanwhile, the Farmer's Monthly Visitor, in its April 30 issue, ran an article (likely from Isaac Hill himself) asking readers to reconsider birds, beasts, and reptiles usually considered "noxious." He led with the toad and the crow but quickly moved to the snake, an animal that was generally killed on sight (sometimes for "Scriptural" reasons). The turning point for Hill came when a Quaker friend stopped him from killing a striped snake with a stick. "He never did thee injury--he will do more good than harm: let him alone." And indeed, Hill came to learn that even the black snake should be spared, because of its controls on grain-eating mice, rats, and chipmunks. (The rat, Hill added, was a puzzle: "In the economy of nature we can see no possible good resulting from their creation.") Finally, Hill addressed the usefulness of the skunk, an animal that could cause mischief in the hen house, but was a big consumer of mice and harmful grubs. Hill concluded, "If the skunks shall not molest us, let them live and do good."

In its May 12 issue, the New England Farmer ran an excerpt from the Visitor article focusing on the skunk:

The merits of this hitherto much abused animal, are beginning to be developed and appreciated--Subjoined is Gov. Hill's testimony of his worth.... It would seem that the good which the skunk (out upon that name!) accomplishes in his way, fully atones for whatever is offensive in those striking peculiarities and mischief working eccentricities of his character, for which ever since mother Eve nibbled the pippen, he has been noted and persecuted. The testimony of so eminent an individual as Gov. Hill in favor of the skunk, we think is entitled to great weight, and we trust it will have its due influence in preventing a further war of extermination upon the animal...

Consensus, in a much shorter time frame than with useful birds, had emerged among the leading farm journals.

Holmes at the Maine Farmer, continued to have fun with the topic. In response to the New England Farmer request for a renaming, he replied:

Well...if you think a skunk "by any other name will smell as sweet," suppose you call him muskiferous puppy? or if that cognomen is not sufficiently euphonious and magniloquent, suppose you call him L'Eau de Cologne animal?

In its June 6 issue, the New England Farmer continued the exchange, rejecting Holmes's suggestions (because they still focused too much on the animal's "aromatic peculiarity"), but drew attention to the consensus and (mock) heroism of their campaign for changed public opinion:

When you and we! and Gov. Hill, shall have succeeded in "elevating" the skunk to his rightful place among useful animals, by demonstrating that instead of being the enemy of man he is the destroyer of man's enemies--when we shall have accomplished this (and our prospects of success grow brighter with the lapse of time,) shall we not merit the title of public benefactors? We shall,--and who shall say, that posterity, estimating aright the signal service we have rendered them by our disinterested and philanthropic exertions, may not enrol our names among "the few, the immortal few, that we not born to die."!!!

The New England Farmer's pro-skunk campaign was finally fully realized in a long article in direct support of the animal on June 21, titled "The Useful Creature." Indeed (maintaing the mock heroic tone) the editors noted, "All the laurels we may have gained in this "new field of popular distinction,"are most cheerfully surrendered to the gentleman who has in this article so ably defended the skunk." The author of the article, "P.D.," while continuing the wordplay that so delighted the farm journal editor collective, laid down a multi-prong detailed defense. In addition to destroying the "worst enemies of the tillers of the soil," the skunk, when de-scented was "as sweet and harmless a creature as the prettiest kitten or puppy," and given its physical limitations (it doesn't really climb) it was very easy to guard henhouses from any potential depredations. Thus, as with other useful animals, their wanton destruction was a tragedy. This article was reprinted in June 30 edition of the Farmer's Monthly Visitor. Meanwhile, the witty banter between the editors of the Maine Farmer and the New England Farmer over the skunk issue went one final round, with Holmes suggesting that the his counterpart deserved to "be knighted, and have a skunk fragrant on the field of your coat of arms."

Finally, in its October 6 issue, the New England Farmer extended its support to the (gray) squirrel, running an article drawn from the Farmer's Cabinet, which referenced both the usefulness of birds and the "loafers, who wage an eternal war against every thing that has life in the shape of bird or beast." Drawing from a British publication, the correspondent called out the valuable role of the squirrel in planting oak trees.

The defense of other useful animals was both an extension and a response to useful bird protection. On the one hand, it simply included more animals under the heading of "unwarranted prejudices" (many of which continue today). On the other hand, it addressed the seeming unfairness of all the attention being paid to the usefulness of birds. As the author of the above article observed, "We find many who are ready to advocate the cause of the birds, [but] we never hear any commiseration expressed for the little animal, the squirrel, whose presence enlivens the otherwise lonely solitude of the deep wood, and adds a charm to everyday landscape, but who is doomed to destruction..." As the playful conversations around skunk protection indicated, there was also a touch of irony in this extension and perhaps in the "heroic" efforts of animal protectors generally.

Sometimes the rhetoric goes off the rails

The New England Farmer had made it a mission to try to draw young farmers into its audience. The young were more likely than old-timers to be receptive to innovations and scientific approaches to farming--less likely to reject the publication as a form of "book learning." Part of this strategy was a liberal policy of publishing correspondence from their younger readers, in hopes of forging a community of open-minded agricultural innovators. Sometimes these new ideas could be ill-conceived.

On June 2, 1841, the Farmer published an article by "A Farmer Boy" (his second appearance in the paper) titled, "To Boys in the Country--Spare the Birds." The writer explained, appropriately, that an appeal to young men from a peer would be a more effective approach than the scolding they typically received from older writers. And thus he proceeded to lay out his arguments for bird protection, addressing directly "boys in the country." In many ways, the writer simply reproduced the form of previous appeals:

My friends, let us receive the birds as welcome visitors to our fields, and not as soon as one makes his appearance, run to the house for a gun, and by creeping slyly behind some fence or bush, get near enough to pour upon him the leaden ball, and spoil his fine dress, wrought and colored by the hand of nature, so as to remain unfaded and uninjured through all the rain and hail which the clouds have poured forth upon him [knowledge about molting apparently was not widespread]; stop forever the music of his throat, tuned by his Maker, and prevent him from ever more assisting the husbandman to free his premises of noxious insects. 

This is familiar language. It is when it came to placing the birds in Creation (the search for purpose that we've seen so often in bird protection discourse), that he made some remarkable claims.

I think that the birds were intended for ornaments to adorn and beautify the works of nature, and with their beautiful plumage, graceful movements and sweet warblings, to please the eye and delight the ear of man....As the birds require food, it may be that the insects were made on purpose for them [my emphasis]; these feed upon the same plants and vegetables which give sustenance to man and beast. It is so ordered by an all-wise Providence, that if man wantonly and cruelly destroys the birds, judgment may come upon him, by having the crops destroyed by the very insects upon which the birds would feed.

In other words, it wasn't simply the case that birds controlled insects harmful to agriculture, but rather that "Providence" had deliberately set up a situation whereby bird destruction (their purpose was ornamentation) triggered automatic penalties in the form of crop depredations by insects. Even by the standards of teleology-seeking creationism this is an incredible construction. What is the purpose of insects? To feed birds and to punish humans who kill birds?

For better or worse this misreading of useful bird arguments received little subsequent attention in the Farmer or other papers. That the New England Farmer ran it (without comment) is an indication that the publication's zealous support of bird protection sometimes made it less critical than it should have been when it came to the quality of support its authors offered. And I expect modern readers may lose patience with "A Farmer's Boy's" youthful writing by the end of his concluding paragraph:

Think of this as you are about to poise your piece and pour its deadly contents upon the unfortunate victim, and if your finder does not refuse to do the horrid deed, or at least if your conscience does not upbraid you and agitate your nerves so as to suffer the bird to escape "more scared than hurt," you must have a heart as hard as the savage [my emphasis], who when seeking for revenge can bury his tomahawk in the heads of innocent women and children, and quench his thirst with the blood as it flows from their wounds.

Clearly bird protection and social justice did not always go hand in hand. Unwarranted prejudices against birds were more easily dispelled than unwarranted prejudices against fellow humans.

"We often mistake our friends for foes."

On August 19, 1840 the New England Farmer ran a long story from a correspondent (James M. Hartwell of Medford, MA) about the danger posed to fruit trees from the "borer" and his discovery of their origin (apparently it was not yet thoroughly known that borers were the larvae of beetles). In an editorial comment appended to the piece, "J.B." [Joseph Breck, who deserves more attention in histories of bird protection] confirmed the truth of Hartwell's "discovery" and went on to suggest a less tedious solution for borer infestations than the "gouge or crooked wire" that horticulturalists tended to use:

[T]hese are the bill and long tongue of the little speckled [downy] wood-pecker. Let these birds be encouraged, and much of the labor of the horticulturalist is prevented. A friend of ours told us he would not have one of these birds killed for five dollars, and that he suffered no loafer to enter his premises with a gun, and considers the man or boy who injures a bird in the same light as if they robbed his purse.

In the same issue, the Farmer ran an excerpt from the Farmer's Monthly Visitor (by "Stoddard") titled, "We often mistake our friends for foes," which led with the injustices done to woodpeckers and then went on to defend the crow and blackbird.

How often the woodpecker is shot for his supposed injury to fruit trees, when in fact he is only destroying the vermin which are destroying the tree.

Hartwell wrote back to the New England Farmer (September 2), fully concurring with the editorial comment. In addition to praising the values of cheerful music and insect destruction (already a mandatory part of the bird protection essay genre), he noted that cherry eating birds were effective planters:

I have no doubt but what three hundred English cherry seedlings may be found upon the place...These trees my employer intends to have taken up soon, and put in a convenient place for sale, which if disposed of at the common price, will bring a good round sum--more money than was ever gained in preventing the birds from eating a few cherries.

He ended by expressing the hope that

the time may soon come when [birds] shall become our familiar friends, and feel that we are their protectors rather than enemies. 

Meanwhile, too many horticulturalists, not to mention "sportsmen," treated them as foes.

On October 30, the New England Farmer ran an excerpt from A Report on the Birds of Massachusetts, an official document edited by William Bourn Oliver Peabody commissioned by the Massachusetts Legislature. In what might have been considered the final word on the subject, in Massachusetts anyway, the report forcefully asserted that there was no bird harmful enough to agriculture to warrant its killing:

to exterminate birds which do a little harm occasionally, is to protect ourselves from a small evil at the expense of a greater; it is in fact securing the fruit by the sacrifice of the tree. There is no question that we are now suffering severely in consequence of this folly. No kind of cultivation is affected to any considerable extent by the ravages of birds, and if it should be, means may be devised to prevent them. [Peabody cited Wilson's blackbird calculations and Kalm/Franklin's New England blackbird story as support.]

Peabody's volume, in the tradition of Wilson, Audubon, and Nuttall before him, actively confronted unwarranted prejudices against certain birds, including hawks, blackbirds, crows, and woodpeckers (even the red-headed woodpecker, which he admitted "helps itself [to fruit] with the utmost freedom, caring little for the rights and threats of the owner.") His thoughts on the always controversial cedar waxwing are particularly interesting

If the horticulturalist, who sees the results of his labor disappearing, undertakes to prevent it, he only wastes his powder; that some of their number are shot, is a matter of unconcern to the survivors; he may gratify his revenge, but the scene of plunder will go on before his eyes; and he can only console himself with the reflection, that, in proportion to the appetite with which they devour his fruit, is the energy, with which, at other seasons, they take his part against enemies which he himself cannot reach. The truth seems to be, that, till fruit becomes more common, as it doubtless will be, these depredations will continue to be vexatious and discouraging; and the better way will be, to accept them as an intimation, to provide enough for ourselves and the cedar-birds too. 

Adding to the increasing socio-emotional way of seeing relationships with birds, Peabody repeatedly asserted that the shooting of birds was not an effective way of preventing depredations but simply a "gratification of revenge." They were seen as thieves deserving punishment. Instead, horticulturalists should embrace the presence of the cedar bird and provide for them as well. [Another note in our prehistory of bird-feeding].

"Fowler, spare that bird!" Bird protection gets a new (ironic) slogan.

In May, 1840, the (Albany) Cultivator ran a bird protection article (credited to "A Friend to Birds"), headlined, "Fowler, Spare that Bird!" The reference may be obscure to readers today but audiences at the time would have recognized it right away, maybe even groaned a little. It was yet another play on the poem and popular song, "Woodman, Spare that Tree" (AKA "The Oak") by George Pope Morris, first published in 1837. The poem is sometimes referenced as conservationist but its message is more sentimental than environmental. A man pleads with a woodcutter to stop cutting down a tree, not because of the tree's ecological value, but because of the memories attached to it.

Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I’ll protect it now.
’T was my forefather’s hand
That placed it near his cot;
There, woodman, let it stand,
Thy axe shall harm it not.
etc.

The poem/song quickly became an 1830s-style meme and parodies, variations, and plays on the first line spread through print culture. In fact, the idea of applying the poem to birds had already been realized in an 1838 parody published in the Dedham Advertiser, titled "Sportsman, Spare that Bird!"

Sportsman, spare that bird,
On that old oaken bough;
Its song my soul hath stirred,
And I will save it now.
In my forefather's cot,
I've listened to that lay;
Then, sportsman, harm it not,
But let it fly away.
etc.

Both bird protection and the Morris poem, it seems, were apt subjects for gentle mocking.

And in fact, the Cultivator article began in a way that reproduced the "its song my soul hath stirred/And I will save it now" sentiment of the Advertiser parody.

I know of few things more calculated to disturb the equanimity of mind, and ruffle the feelings of a humane man, one who lives among animals and birds, and feels as if they were all personal friends [my emphasis], than to see a shock-headed, straddling thing, calling itself a man, with rusty musket or rifle, creeping about our highways, woodlands or orchards, and popping away at the harmless little creatures that give to the landscape half its charms, and to the eye and the ear half their pleasures.

...I plead not for the hawk or the crow; but for the beautiful songsters that greet the morn with a hymn, flutter over and through our meadows and orchards, and exhibit an instinctive happiness that would reconcile the most morbid misanthropist to life and its cares. I never hear the song sparrow, that with us is usually the first harbinger of spring, without a feeling of gladness that "the winter is over and gone, and the time of the singing of birds is come;"[Song of Solomon]

The author was willing to make more hard-headed calculations with respect to some birds, but not songsters. Indeed, the dawn chorus alone might be alone to convert uncertain readers to the cause.

Before you destroy a bird on your premises, or permit any one else to do it, be certain that you are not about to destroy one of your most faithful friends. Carefully weigh the good and the evil they occasion against each other; think of the pleasure and instruction they afford: rise on one of our beautiful mornings before the sun, and hear from copse, and orchard, and grove, the thousand voices of joy and melody that are rising and mingling, and if you have single feeling that belonged to man in paradise, it will not be necessary to repeat to you--Fowler, spare that bird!

The Cultivator article would be widely reprinted in the farm and general press, including the New England Farmer, the religious and literary journal, The Friend, and the newspaper, Burlington Free Press. From that point on "Spare the Birds!" would be attached in the press to the bird protection movement, serving as a kind of rallying cry. But it was an ironic one, because the same "Spare the Birds!," to defenders of bird-shooting, articulated the unthinking sentiment that they suspected was driving the movement. "Spare the Birds!" would, thus, be used as a headline for many anti-bird protection articles in the farm press to come.

"Killing a small bird should be placed next to killing a child" New England Farmer (1840)

1838 and 1839 were bad years for cankerworms in the Northeast. Trees were defoliated and solutions were sought. In October 1839, the New England Farmer ran an article originally published in the New Haven Daily Herald that featured a long essay on the "Entomology of the Cankerworm," apparently sent anonymously to the paper from a reader in Philadelphia.

We've seen that essay before. It was published in 1795 in the Memoirs of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society and reprinted regularly in farm papers in the decades after. If you remember, one of the solutions the author suggested was a bird--the commonly reviled Cedar Waxwing.

In February 1840, the New England Farmer reprinted a notice from the Worcester Aegis commenting on a call in the Boston Courier for more research into the cankerworm threat. "H.C.," the chief editorial voice of the Farmer during this period, referenced the 1795 essay again and called out the bird solution specifically.

We as yet know of but one effectual remedy against the canker worm, that is the encouragement of birds. They are the best friends of the farmer and the gardener. In our code of penal justice, killing a small bird should be placed next to killing a child. [My emphasis]. We were assured the last summer, that at the beautifully cultivated district of Cambridge called "Flob," (have the name altered, we pray,) abounding in fruit, they were entirely free from canker worms, while in Old Cambridge, the orchards suffered severely. The great security which they found was in the encouragement and preservation of the birds. A gunner in West Cambridge would be in as much danger as an abolitionist in South Carolina [my emphasis]. 

The rhetoric was clearly heating up. The passage was quoted by a correspondent in a letter to the Farmer's Monthly Visitor about the "Value of Birds."  That letter, including the passage, was reprinted in the Farmer's Register. [If nothing else, this episode highlights the convoluted passage of bird protection texts from one place to another!]

The Farmer's Cabinet, for its part, directly commented on the over-heated rhetoric, but added some (deliberately exaggerated?) rhetoric of its own.

We can hardly say with the writer of the article, that "killing a small bird should be placed in our penal code next to killing a child;" but we do say that it ought to be met with a punishment sufficient to prevent the destruction which annually takes place, in mere wantonness or sport, among the innocent songsters of our groves and orchards. We have been almost disposed in times past to bring the boys before Judge Lynch [my emphasis], and might probably have done it could we have put our hands upon them. 

The writer of the Cabinet article went on to relate an example of the "benevolence of birds" in response to the gunners, describing how a pair of bluebirds took care of an orphaned grackle. The Cabinet also reprinted a letter to the editor of the Boston Courier promoting bird protection (using the example of red-winged blackbirds in Wilson). The toad, the author added, was another victim of "unreasonable prejudice."

In June 1840, the New England Farmer ran an article by "W." in direct response to the cankerworm essay printed the previous year. The author urged "the enactment of laws" deterring wanton shooting, referring directly to existing anti-cruelty statutes.

We have laws punishing with severity the person found guilty of abusing a domestic animal, and the killing and wounding of useful birds and leaving their young to perish with hunger, should be punished in like a manner. 

Birds were benevolent innocents.

All the birds ask is protection; their weight is so small as not to endanger the tenderest twig; they will work in the orchard, the garden and the field; their notes are soft, and they will give us music from morning till night, which has been admired by wise and good men in all ages, and which cannot be despised by any person having a claim to virtue or taste.

The author provided his own example of (milder) violence toward such "worthless, vicious, and idle men":

The editor [prob. John Ford] of the [Boston] Mercantile Journal remarked not long since, that he could go as far to kick a fellow who might be seen with a gun on his shoulder traversing the fields in quest of birds [my emphasis], as John Randolph would to kick a sheep. That was an expression of honest indignation, sufficiently mild, yet it would be well if a majority of the people felt likewise. 

The reference to sheep kicking may seem to run against the larger anti-cruelty theme, but it was actually just a reference to a well-known eccentricity. Remember that Randolph (of Roanoke) was himself a bird protector.

Bobwhites and Household Gods

In its June 1839 issue, the Farmer's Cabinet ran a letter credited to "Penn" titled, "Birds on Farms." Like many of the bird protection articles at the time, it condemned the wanton shooting of birds, but it approached the topic from a slightly different perspective than most, linked to ancient customs. To this farmer, wild birds were not just helpers in the control of weeds and insects but familiars.

What gives a man more pleasure than when walking over his grounds, he is welcomed by the shrill whistle of the partridge [bobwhite], who, grown familiar with his friend and daily companion, cheers him in his toil and delights him when at leisure?

That these birds were (and are) considered game birds adds to the poignancy of the relationship.

These birds I have often seen so tame that they would scarcely leave my path, and I remember a covey that, during one winter, would frequently come to my gravel walk, to receive the feed that was placed there for them [another moment in the prehistory of bird-feeding]. They amounted to about twenty, and I set a high value upon them; but there came upon my farm, during my absence, two gunners with their dogs, and destroyed them all. I assure you, I felt the loss of those birds more than I would that of the best horse in my stable [my emphasis].

These birds were effectively semi-domesticated, members of the household. The author referenced an older tradition.

For myself, I feel in regard to the birds, as the ancients did of their household goods [sic. the author evidently intended "gods"]: nor can I control a feeling of indignation and a sense of injury, when I see my neighbors or strangers wantonly destroying them upon my premises. 

I've previously mentioned the special place of the swallow as a bird singled out as a favorite of the household gods during the Roman Empire. It is worth noting that the capture and care of wild birds was a widespread practice during that era, as it was in America during the 1830s. "Penn" did not advocate capture, however, but other means to keep birds around the domestic sphere. 

The sparrow, blue-bird, wren and other small birds labor diligently in our gardens…Boxes for their accommodation, should be nailed to the trees, and by carefully avoiding to alarm them, and other kind means, they could be domesticated among us. They will otherwise take to the woods and by-places, and we shall be deprived of the pleasure of listening to their cheering songs, and lose the advantages of their incessant labors. 

This article was reprinted in the New England Farmer and the Farmer's Register the following month.

Little Goody Two Shoes saves some birds

The children's book, Little Goody Two Shoes, dates from 1765, closer to Sarah Trimmer's era than William Drummond's. Nevertheless, it (like the History of the Robins) had a very long publication life, republished many times in many different versions, including an 1839 American edition, which retold the story in contemporary English (and without many of the explicit bible lessons of the original).

It offers one literary example of the woman-as-ideal-bird-protector figure that had begun to enter bird protection discourse. The relevant scenes occur late in the book: "Little Goody Two Shoes" has matured into a woman (with a real name--Margery) and is employed as a school teacher. 

Margery had a very feeling heart, and could not endure to see even a dumb animal used with cruelty, without trying to prevent it. As she was one day walking through the village, her attention was drawn to some boys, who were tying a poor raven, which they had caught, to a post, on purpose to amuse themselves with the cruel diversion of shying or throwing a stick at it. Margery, to get the raven out of their hands, gave them a penny, and brought it home with her. She called the raven Ralph; taught him to speak and spell; and as he was fond of playing with the capital letters, the children called them Ralph's alphabet. 

Shortly after, when rambling in the fields, she saw two boys torturing a beautiful dove, by allowing it to fly a little way, and then pulling it back agin, with a string which was tied to its foot. Margery also rescued this bird for a mere trifle, and carried it away with her. She likewise learned the dove to spell with her letters, besides many other curious things; and being very useful in carrying letters, she called him Tom. It is a curious fact, that Tom showed as great a liking for the small letters as Ralph had for the large, and the scholars used to give them the appellation of "Tom's alphabet."

The choice of the biblically resonant raven and dove (pigeon in the original) cannot have been accidental. And in addition to the saving of birds through payment (shades of Isaac Bickerstaff), we see birds integrated into the education of young children (another perennial theme), as well as domesticated (via the stuff of language). Her close relationship with birds and other animals leads a townsperson to accuse her of witchcraft (of which she is quickly acquitted--but a sign that relations with wild animals should not exceed the domestic circle? Who would have expected Little Goody Two Shoes to be such a rich text?) 

At any rate, Little Goody Two Shoes/Margery became an icon for both proper behavior and cruelty prevention. The figure was generalized to other stories, such as an adapted version that appeared in J.K. Smith's (1832) Juvenile Lessons or the Child's First Reading Book. The fourth lesson told the story of "Mary and her Pigeon."

Some rude boys had one day got a pigeon which was lame, and its wings being cut, it could not fly; so they had tied a string to one of its legs, and put it down to throw stones at, that he who hit is should have it for his own. But just as they were going to throw at it, little Mary ran and begged them to stop, and said she would buy the bird. "How much," said she, "must I give for it?" "Six-pence," said one of the boys. "I have but four-pence," said Mary,--"take all my money. I do not not want the bird; only do not use it ill." So they took her money, and gave her the bird; and she took care of it, and fed it well, and it lived with her a long time in the house. It would be pleasant, if we could now see how cheerful the poor bird looked upon Mary, every day as she fed it; and how glad was she, as she stroked its glossy feathers, that she had saved its life. How should we like to be pelted with sticks and stones? Poor birds can feel pain, as well as boys and girls, and it is not right to hurt any one of God's creatures,--we should treat them with mercy and kindness. 

This empathetic perspective was repeated through Smith's text in a number of other stories involving birds and children (boys more likely to be cruel, and repent). 

William Drummond, Animal Rights, and Bird Protection

Some of the farm paper bird protection discussion in the late 1830s began to incorporate ideas and attitudes from the early 19th century animal rights/anti-cruelty movement.  Indeed, a letter to the Farmer's Monthly Visitor in October 1839 (reprinted the following year in the New England Farmer), titled "Cruelty to Animals," urged readers to go beyond the protection of birds to think about cruelty to other members of the animal kingdom. I thought it might be useful to look at the work of an influential writer of that era on the topic: William H. Drummond's The Rights of Animals and Man's Obligation to Treat them with Humanity (1838).  While anti-cruelty laws are generally thought of as applying mostly to domestic and work animals, Drummond made a surprising number of direct references to wild birds and the kinds of cruelties they were often subject to, suggesting (as with Pope earlier) that bird protection actually prefigured, to some extent, animal rights efforts.

Drummond, like Sarah Trimmer, found his justification for the humane treatment of animals in scripture. Indeed, he had published an earlier version of The Rights of Animals, titled Humanity for Animals the Christian's Duty (1830), that was a point for point use of bible passages to support his arguments. Mosaic Law in particular supplied examples of kindness toward animals such as oxen and nesting birds; while they were ultimately subordinate to humans, animals had their own role in Creation independent of their relations with humans. Drummond allowed for the eating of meat and was guardedly OK about some forms of hunting, but he was strongly against the "wanton" variety of killing and any practice that caused more pain to animals than necessary (e.g. vivisection).

With respect to birds, Drummond was particularly opposed to the (sometimes arbitrary) bounties put on putatively injurious species, starting with the Elizabethan "Act for the Preservation of
Graine"

Why [it] should spread its meshes for the beautiful kingfisher, it is not easy to discover; and as for the poor bullfinch and its confreres, they might have been spared for their song, though at the expense of a little " blowth of fruit." The ignorance and barbarity evinced by such enactments are equally conspicuous. The crow, the rook, and the chough are warred against for destroying grain, whereas it is notorious that they live on insects, carrion, and worms ; beetles are the favourite food of the hedge- hog ; the mole feeds on worms, and the bullfinch renders great service to the garden and orchard by destroying insects in the young buds.

This was cruelty based on "ignorance and false pretences." Like many authors before him, he drew on Bradley's 3360 caterpillars and Franklin's New England blackbirds story as evidence of the usefulness of even suspect birds. House sparrows had a "special claim to humane consideration" given their close relationship with humans. The slaughter produced by "Sparrow clubs" horrified him:

The existence of such a horrible fraternity is a disgrace to the nation. Twelve Apostles of the Demon of Cruelty would be enough to pollute the land, and fix an indelible stigma on its character — were there not some society, like that for " the Prevention of Cruelty," to counteract their mischief and show that humanity is no stranger to the bosoms of Englishmen. May all such diabolical combinations as the Sparrow Club sink under the people's unmitigated abhorrence and execration ! Cruelty is the ally of every vice and every crime ; and the sparrow-butcher and the assassin are the progeny of the same parent. 

Drummond followed the conventional wisdom, that cruelty towards animals was strongly associated with cruelty towards one's fellow humans. 

The "wanton" killing of birds was another intolerable form of cruelty, but one that was celebrated in some circles:

Birds are often unmercifully slaughtered where not even the hope of a meal, of profit by "sale-victual" nor the pretext of injury, nor aught but the simple love of sport, operates as a motive for their destruction. Thus we read in the Kentish Chronicle : —

A countryman, one day last week, in three shots killed 64 sea gulls on the lands of Milestone farm near Bridge. The first shot he brought down 12, at the second 15, and at the third 27.

This was an act of wanton barbarity ; and such acts, we fear, are often perpetrated as glorious. Those poor birds had, probably, retired to the glebe-lands for shelter from the storms of their native element ; and if they rendered no service to the farmer, assuredly they did him no injury. The Chronicle which records the above achievement should also have stigmatized it with reprobation. 

Even naturalists seeking specimens for scientific purposes were to be cautious not to exceed absolute necessity, especially when dealing with rare species.

Some naturalists console themselves with the belief, that let them destroy what number they may of individuals, nature will take due care to preserve the species. But in this they fall into an egregious fallacy. All species are made up of individuals, and the destruction of the one is involved in that of the other. Some species indeed are so amazingly prolific, as to set all the arts of destruction at defiance. This is the case especially among the finny tribes. But in other species it is different, insomuch that in regions where certain animals were once numerous, they are now altogether extinct. The beaver, the wolf, and the bear were once inhabitants of England, as were the wolf and the wolf dog of Ireland; but not an individual of these animals is now to be found. Is there no danger of some species of birds sharing a similar fate, both abroad and at home? What has become of the dodo? The spoon-bill was once a native of Britain, and the capercaillie ... of Scotland, and of some parts of Ireland; but now they are gone. The bustard, too, and the bittern will probably, ere long, have to be classed with the things that were. 

Extinction was already a concern.

Finally, for those of you who may have noted the increased "gendering" of bird protection in the last few posts, it is worth noting that Drummond made his own pointed (and perhaps unwelcome) contribution:

We read of a certain Marchioness, who "took the field a few days ago, and in one battu brought down twelve brace of birds." How far it is consistent with the female character to take an active part in these murderous sports the reader may determine. For our own part we prefer the attar of roses to the smell of gunpowder, and think a needle, a thimble, and a crow-quill pen more ornamental to the delicate fingers of a lady than pistols, blunder-busses, and double-barrelled guns. The ''virtuous woman" of holy writ "seeketh (not snipes and partridges, but) wool and flax. She layeth her hands on the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. Her husband (whom she delighteth to honor) is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land" not by his ardor in the chase or his rank in the jockey club, but by his deliberative wisdom in the senate of his country: and he is distinguished by other trophies than foxes' tails appended to his wife's robes, and paraded at a public assembly. 

Drummond used some verses from the Scottish poet James Thomson to endorse this position:

But if the rougher sex by this fierce sport
is hurried wild, let not such horrid joy
E'er stain the bosom of the British fair.

Accordingly, it would be the special responsibility of women to protect birds from this slaughter.

Remarkable responses to the Farmer's Cabinet bird protection essay contest winner

The Farmer's Cabinet award-winning bird protection essay ran in June, 1838. In July the first responses to the essay came trickling in.

"Humanitas Jr.", suggested that some of the species that many farmers condemned as injurious, might, if observed carefully, reveal themselves to be useful. This included the purple "grakle" and the crow, as well as the hawk: "The different species of hawks, so generally considered as pirates, and destroyed without mercy, I believe do us more service in the destruction of field mice, moles, etc., than would be counterbalanced by the loss of a few chickens."

A second correspondent wondered if the numbers of ducks and other domestic fowl should be increased in the absence of wild birds in order to check the population of insects. 

In August the Cabinet printed a response rather remarkable for its time and perhaps the most remarkable contribution to the larger bird protection conversation yet. The author, while lauding efforts to control wanton destruction of birds, casts doubt on hunting as the cause of their decline:

However "intimate the connexion which exists between the interests of agriculture and increase and diminution of our indigenous birds" may be, I do not believe that the principal cause of their disappearance from amongst us can consistently be attributed exclusively to those very appropriately styled "truant murderers…

Instead it is the farmers themselves that are to blame:

I have no doubt that he that causes 20 acres of well timbered land to be cleared and brought under cultivation in two years, is more instrumental in the diminution of those indigenous birds than ten men with their guns would be in the same length of time.

This habitat-destruction theory of bird decline could be paired with natural rhythms of population rises and falls to explain fluctuations in numbers of both birds and insects.

I am inclined to believe that there are certain operations of nature that tend to multiply or decrease the different portions of the animal and vegetable kingdom, in due proportion to the propitious or destructive agency relative to the fructifying principle of their respective species. 

Indeed, humans were not the only cause of species extinction (note: that "extinction" was even possible was still a rather novel idea during these times).

The destruction of those animals whose fossil remains are the only evidence of their having had existence, cannot be attributed to man, for he was not…[T]o conclude that similar changes are now in progress cannot be irrational, although they may be imperceptible to us poor transient and short-sighted mortals…

Nevertheless, humans had a moral responsibility to protect birds, particularly during breeding seasons. Nestlings were innocents. 

Because their tender care-takers, in obedience to the will of their Creator, have dared to pluck a stalk or blade, which, perhaps, had been the object or attention of interloping and penurious man, who, having power, forgets right, and will kill or destroy every thing which in his weak estimation interferes with his avaricious profits of gain…If priority of occupancy gives right, then is the title to the soil vested in the beasts and birds, and man is the squatter [my emphasis].

These kinds of sentiments, condemning the farmer who would make economic calculations his guide to destroying or not destroying birds, and giving non-humans some moral rights, were new to the bird protection conversation. It should be noted that the author, while deploying some relatively sophisticated (for the time) ecological understandings, also made thorough use of biblical stories and passages to make his argument. 

In December the Cabinet published another direct response to the essay contest winner, titled "Insects vs. Birds." Following the teleological creation reasoning of the essay author:

I have been almost led to inquire, "For what were all things made?" Were they all created for some useful purpose in the great economy of nature--or, while one part was destined for a wise and benevolent purpose, was another formed for ravage and destruction only, without rendering a corresponding compensation in the great operations of nature? True, we are so much the creatures of self, that whatever appears to militate against our interest, we are ever willing to decry at first view, as being not only useless, but to set it down as destructive in its consequences, without stopping to inquire for a moment--was it formed for any useful purpose?

Was it in fact prejudicial to assume that birds were useful while insects were not?

Are birds of the air, whether graniverous or insectiverous, the untutored friends of man, while the tiny insect that sports in summer's sun, and which nature has taught the wonderful instinct to burrow in the earth for its preservation during, and protection from the rigors of winter, is nought but a depredator and destructor, meriting the acquaintance and friendship of man no further than for him to seek its utter annihilation?

The correspondent cites holes in soil made by beetles.

Might not these perforations tend materially to the fertilization of the soil by the more readily admitting the air and the heat of the sun, and absorbing the rain more freely, which carries with it the decaying and putrefying matter from the surface to the absorbent fibres of the roots of plants? 

The correspondent requested more information from Cabinet readers about this question of useful insects. And indeed, in later years, as the economic entomology project developed, insects would be categorized into useful and injurious and the usefulness of certain bird species would be gauged by the proportion of useful vs. injurious insects consumed. 

And finally in September, in direct inspiration to the contest winning essay, the Cabinet published a poem by "E.C.S. Cedar Brook, NJ", titled "To the Sportsman," which included the following preface:

"The race of birds was not formed in vain. Each one has his task to perform; we sin in wantonly destroying them: first, against Him who made them for his glory; then, against ourselves, willingly ignorant of their untaught 'labors of love.'"--injury from destroying birds--Far. Cab. Vol. 2d, page 332.

Sportsman, stay thy hand;

Spare thou that little bird!

And o'er the fruitful land,

Still let his song be heard!

Of all the feather'd train

Who cleave the air of heaven,

Not one is made in vain,

Nor yet for sport was given.

Hark! to the robin's lay

That pours from yonder grove,

To hail the break of day,

And bid all nature move!

Hark! to the nightingale,

Whose notes at twilight come

From yon green flowery vale,

To charm the peasant home!

And see, how heaven ordains,

That birds in time of need,

WIth insects from the plains,

Their helpless young should feed!

That thus, the farmer's hop,

No hidden worm destroy;

That he may save his crop,

And birds their food enjoy.

And shall the sportsman's gun

Arrest the parent bird?

And leave the work undone,

It sought at nature's word?

Must harmless songsters bleed,

To please the heartless youth?

Pause, sportsman! pause, and read

The page of nature's truth!

God hears the raven's call,

And answers to his cry;

He guards the sparrow's fall,

With kind, protecting eye!

If birds are thus HIS care,

Who life to man hath given;

Then sportsman! O, beware!

Nor tempt the frown of heaven!

The bird protection poem had become a genre unto itself.