Birds as Poetry (Country Gentleman, 1855)

Mocking-Bird from Wood's Illustrated Natural History

The Country Gentleman, "A journal for the farm, the garden and the fireside. Devoted to improvement in agriculture, horticulture, and rural taste; to elevation in mental, moral, and social character, and the spread of useful knowledge and current news," offered a combination of farm and garden information and leisure-time reading material. Since its inception as part of Luther Tucker's agricultural publishing enterprise in 1853, it had offered a regular nature column, first titled "Scraps from a Naturalist's Note Book," and then just, "The Naturalist." Bird accounts were regularly featured, though by 1855 many of them seemed like excuses to run images of exotic species such as flamingos and kiwis drawn from Woods' Illustrated Natural History.

On February 8, 1855, it offered "A Column about Birds," as part of its "Fireside" section. I have copied it in full below. I challenge anyone to find writing about birds that is more overwrought with sentiment. [Actually, this one, from the author of the Hunter-naturalist, comes close.]

Borne down with no weight of gross mortality,— clad in a silken down, as free from earth's harshness as their song is full of heaven's melody, Birds seem really of some celestial clime,—visitants to earth from a purer and more spiritual home. With superhuman speed, they fly from zone to zone, or with gentler wing, and casting quick gleams from their radiant hues, they seem creatures of the sunshine, with which their fairy dance is interwoven. With the pure snow-flakes they hover around our homes in winter—with the sunbeam, they greet the opening buds and sweet perfumes of spring. On the trackless ocean, they bring good tidings of land and haven to the storm-tossed sailor;

-"in bush or tree," [Sir Walter Scott]

with happy notes, they sing the summer's dayspring and the fulfillment of God's promise, to the toilers in the field. They claim the shelter of our old, over-hanging eaves,—they nestle warmly in our biggest, broadest chimneys,—they glad us with their joyful hymns, even though we shut iron bars around, to confine the ethereal essence within them. Their beauty is inexplicable in its variety, as they are themselves varied in form and color. They are the Flowers of the animal kingdom and they were made, as truly as those in the vegetable world,

"To minister delight to man,
To beautify the earth.
To comfort man, to whisper hope
When'er its faith is dim;
For who so careth for the flowers,
Will much more care for him!" [Mary Howitt: "The Use of Flowers"]

That poets have sung of them—that prophets have gathered inspiration from their flight.—that beautiful and lovely fancies are intermingled in all their history, is no wonder. Murder must be in his soul who loves not to have them about and near him, who turns not to them as exemplars of purity, and charity, and peace—spending their lives in song and yet prudent to build, and knowing the times and seasons—careful of their progeny, but not omitting parental severity that they may learn to wing their own way and repose on their own pinions—dwelling with no more discord in their lives than in their music, and dying—how? Who has ever seen one dead, unless murdered by man or chance? Are they not rather translated to the home that only lent them to us? 

We are sure that all will at least sympathize in what has been said of birds. Though cold utilitarianism sneer, they must be worshippers of greed only, who have no perception of and love for the beauty of the feathered race. Beauty is found in its purest forms in nature, and a reverence for it there can but ennoble.—In art it may degenerate to sensuality, but in God’s handiwork it ever retains the seal and spirit of its first loveliness.

 The article ends by offering images from Wood of the skylark and the mockingbird accompanied by James Hogg's poem, "Bird of the Wilderness" about the former, and Richard Henry Wilde's sonnet about the latter.

The topic of birds and poetry is impossibly large. It might be sufficient to say that birds were not only considered an ideal topic of poetry--along with flowers they were often considered "poetry" of the earth itself. Only those with the proper aesthetic sensitivity (i.e., those "with poetry"), could appreciate birds in this way. Boorish utilitarians could not. Nathaniel Hawthorne, famously, had declined to write about songbirds on these grounds:

The smaller birds—the little songsters of the woods, and those that haunt man’s dwellings and claim human friendship by building their nests under the sheltering eaves or among the orchard trees—these require a touch more delicate and a gentler heart than mine to do them justice.  ("Buds and Bird-voices," 1843)

Of course, writing in verse was a much more common activity during this period, not the province of special poetic genius. Farm periodicals regularly included poems from correspondents, often including lines about birds and birdsong. Wilson's American Ornithology featured poems about birds; his verses about the bluebird were commonly reprinted in farm papers. But during this period there was a growing bifurcation in writing about birds and nature: on the one hand the drier scientific ornithological species account; on the other hand, represented by Wilson Flagg, and later John Burroughs, the more literary appreciation. 

Wilson Flagg joins the conversation (1853-1856)

The magazine of horticulture, botany and all useful discoveries and improvements in rural affairs (AKA, "Hovey's") was a horticultural journal of long standing published in Boston. It had not shown great interest in birds or in the project of protecting them. That changed with the arrival of Wilson Flagg in 1853, though even Flagg was more interested, in his first year, in expounding upon his theory of the "picturesque" in rural landscapes than on wildlife. But in the April 1854 issue Flagg directed his attention toward the birds in an article titled, "On the means of multiplying the smaller birds around our dwellings," and from that point on he would become one of the most important and influential writers on birds and their protection in this era of American history.

Flagg joined others in rejecting "utility" as the primary reason for protecting birds. Indeed, he was explicit about this point:

...admitting the value of almost every species as destroyers of insects, I am disposed to consider their importance in this respect as only secondary to that which regards their pleasant companionship with man [my emphasis]. 

To this end, he encouraged home owners to attract and protect birds on their properties. That birds shouldn't be shot was obvious. But also important was to preserve the habitats in which they thrived, recognizing that some birds did well in clearings but that others ("some of the sweetest singers") required forests. He encouraged the planting of shrubbery with berries, especially the "miscellaneous hedge, the more agreeable because unshorn by art" (his picturesque theory still in play...).  And he argued against lawns, judging they were "luxuries," "obtained at the expense of all birds that nestle in the ground." He encouraged farmers to return to the practice of offering houses for swallows.

In August 1854 he wrote about "The singing birds and their songs," including a table of British vs American singing birds and reviewed ornithologists' judgments about the singing quality of old-world vs new-world birds. The mockingbird was over-rated in his opinion, and he admitted not yet having heard the song of the rose-breasted grosbeak. But, while he pined for the songs of European birds

[T]he lark and the nightingale which have been made so familiar to us by our acquaintance with English literature, are not inhabitants of America, and their absence is lamented by every lover of nature

he believed that

no bird on the face of the earth, can be found, any part of whose song is equal in mellowness, plaintiveness, and in what is generally understood as expression, to the five strains, never varied [?] and yet never tiresome, of the common, little, olive-colored wood-thrush.

The New England Farmer praised this article in its September 1854 issue but judged it was too long to reprint in full.  

Finally, in a two-part article running in the January and February 1855 issues of Hovey's, Flagg turned to the bird protection value he had found secondary, writing a "Plea for the birds--their utility to agriculture." He organized the article by listing five classes of harmful insects and identifying which kinds of birds helped to control each class. Swallows, for example, helped control minute swarming insects in the air, while woodpeckers helped control wood-boring grubs. This comprehensive article, while rarely reprinted in full, was widely noticed in the rest of the agricultural press, and reused in extracted and summarized form.  Indeed, despite Flagg's own stated reservations about "utility" it might have been the most influential piece of "spare the birds" writing yet circulated. (Here are links to part 1 and part 2 of the article.)

The same year, in addition to writing regular articles about the aesthetics of landscape architecture, Flagg also wrote a monthly "studies in the field and forest," piece highlighting various seasonal aspects of nature that readers should be sensitive to. And in 1856, as if he didn't have enough outlets for his nature writing, he began to contribute "portraits from the field and farm-yard," to the New England Farmer, beginning in January with the chickadee. Many of his essays from this period were collected and published as Studies in the Field and Forest in 1857.

With Wilson Flagg, we begin to move into a well-known era of conservation. Flagg soon became a regular contributor to The Atlantic Monthly and was a national figure, specifically known for his sensitive, observing, non-scientific approach to birds and their behavior. Thoreau for one respected him, but famously thought he "was not alert enough." Indeed, Flagg's "picturesque" aesthetic and valuing of birds' "pleasant companionship" were not nearly wild enough for future environmentalists. 

Samuel P. Fowler's suspect ornithology (New England Farmer, 1853-1854).

Samuel P. Fowler was a leading citizen of Danvers and a founder of the Essex County Natural History Society. In 1843 he discovered a new species of toad. He would go on to write an influential book on the Salem Witch Trials.  From 1853 to 1854 he published a ten-part series in the New England Farmer titled, "Birds of New England: Their past and present history." Like Wilson, from whom he drew heavily, he spiced his species accounts with information about birds' diets, rated their helpfulness to the farmer, and decried unjustified persecution. But overall he was more interested in ornithology than telling "spare the birds" stories. And he had an important disagreement with Wilson that he couldn't wait to talk about.

His first article (February 1853), is in some ways his most interesting, charting the prehistory of New England ornithology; he drew from the memoirs of early settlers, Native American lore, and European accounts, such as Ogilby's America and Josselyn's New-England Rarities,  pointing out the accuracies and (sometimes wild) inaccuracies in their descriptions of chimney swifts, "humbirds," and kingbirds. At the end of that article he promised to say more about the hibernation of swallows.

And indeed, his next two articles focused narrowly on the long-standing issue of swallow migration. The earliest European ornithologies had claimed that swallows hibernated. That most swallows migrated was, by Fowler's time, obvious. But he insisted that some swallows might, occasionally, spend the winter in the north in a state of torpidity, secure in hollow trees or under the mud. Wilson, who had dismissed the possibility of swallow hibernation, was not to be trusted on this issue because his knowledge of New England was superficial and biased. Fowler quoted a passage from an 1808 Wilson letter as evidence:

[In New England] there is little or no improvement in agriculture; in fifty miles I did not observe a single grain or stubble field, though the country has been cleared and settled these one hundred and fifty years. In short, the steady habits of a great portion of the inhabitants of those parts of New England through which I passed seem to be laziness and law bickering.

Fowler concluded:

Upon reading this account, we were led to think that if Mr. Wilson was not better acquainted with the habits of New England birds than he was of the character of the people, not much reliance should be placed on his opinion, in regard to the torpidity of swallows. 

What's more, Fowler had seen things with his own eyes that made him less willing to close the question. In April 1836 he had noted the following in his journal:

It was a fine spring morning…I discovered about sunrise two White Bellied [tree] Swallows…fluttering on the ground and unable to fly…Upon examination…they were wet with mud and water, and after being wiped dry, they were taken into the house, and placed on a window in the sun. In a few hours they recovered their consciousness and flew out of the window into the open air. In the vicinity where these birds were found, was a pond filled with mud and water. The mud found upon these swallows was not the black dirt of the garden but was a slimy mud. 

Fowler's stance on swallow hibernation did not help his long-term credibility as an ornithologist.

His access to the canonical works of American ornithology (out of reach of most people because of cost and rarity), did, however, allow him to write informative species accounts. After an introductory article reviewing the orders of birds and providing examples of species found in Massachusetts, he described three or four species an article until his final submission on June 1854. Here his accounts were mostly uncontroversial, with the major exception of the robin. Indeed, recognizing that his position, "against the claims of the robin, as a bird, [to be] useful to the farmer and the horticulturist," would be unpopular, he incorporated a dialogue with a "female friend," in which he explained that the worms, for example, that robins fed their young were actually beneficial to agriculturists. Nevertheless, he pledged never to harm the bird: "for all their faults, we love them still."

That Fowler's articles had gained some traction among the New England Farmer's readership, can be seen by a query from "Laura" (August 1855) asking for a list of the "most approved authors" in American ornithology and where she might find their works. "Many of your female readers have been interested," she added, by a recent series on the "Birds of New England" appearing in the Farmer. Fowler replied, concluding: "We have not at this time a cheap and complete work, embracing a full history with specific descriptions of all our birds…." and called for someone to provide such a work. It would not be himself.

In 1855, Fowler announced that he would be continuing his project, by writing a series of articles on winter birds for the New England Farmer. He made one introductory installment and was done. While he continued to write occasional pieces for the publication, it is unclear why he never followed through on that or the earlier series. In future years, his brother Augustus Fowler would be the one to contribute species accounts to the Farmer, and then later for the Naturalist, the house publication of the Peabody Academy of Science.

Because Samuel P. Fowler's "Birds of New England" articles were never collected and published in a separate volume, I've linked to online sources for each of them below.

No. 1. New England Farmer, February 1853, pages 78-80.

A review of some previous attempts to describe New England birds. 

No. 2. New England Farmer, March 1853, pages 113-115.

Do swallows hibernate or migrate? Fowler finds evidence that suggests hibernation is not out of the question.

No 3.  New England Farmer, May 1853, pages 221-222.

Continues swallow discussion. Argues against Wilson's position that the case against hibernation is closed.

No. 4.  New England Farmer, June 1853, pages 291-292.

Reviews the orders of birds, giving examples of species found in Massachusetts. Adds note condemning wanton shooting of birds. 

No. 5. New England Farmer, July 1853, pages 299-301.

Describes some "omnivorous" birds, defending them as "useful." Includes meadowlark, oriole, red-winged blackbird. Adds an account of the cowbird. 

No. 6. New England Farmer, October 1853, pages 444-445.

The swallow tribe, part 1.

No. 7. New England Farmer, December 1853, pages 565-567.

The swallow tribe, part 2.

No. 8. New England Farmer, January 1854, pages 35-37.

Accounts of robin, kingbird, pewee and cherry bird [cedar waxwing]. Argues that robin is not "useful" but will protect anyway. 

No. 9. New England Farmer, March 1854, pages 142-143.

Accounts of bluebird, bobolink, catbird.

No. 10. New England Farmer, June 1854, pages 251-253.

Accounts of indigo bird [bunting], purple finch, wood thrush.

An ominous development (1851-1855)

New York had an inchworm problem in 1851.

A correspondent in the New York Evening Post (July 1, 1851) complained:

The trees in the city of Brooklyn have suffered greatly in their foliage by worms. Even the... silver-leafed poplar, which has been thought worm-proof, shows, in many places, the ravages of the insect among its leaves. The weeping willow has suffered to a degree that we think we have never seen before; its long twigs hang in some of the streets and churchyards as bare as in winter. 

The solution? Straight from the "spare the birds" narrative.

If we had a race of birds in our town like the house-sparrows of Europe, which are there almost as numerous as the human inhabitants, we are persuaded that the nuisance would not exist. Is there no way of introducing these birds? 

The introduction of non-native birds was a distinct possibility when it came to controlling insects. See for example a report (July 1852) in the Cultivator about the Sandwich Islands [Hawaii]. 

The birds of the islands are of few varieties, and not very numerous--they are found chiefly among the mountains….In the neighborhood of the sea-shore, a variety of plover exists; but as the rage for sporting is here, the birds do not increase. Sparrows and robins would be of great utility in destroying the worms which so molest the crops. It is hoped that they will be introduced soon from Oregon.

In fact, by 1852, the introduction of non-native birds to the New York area was well underway. An article in The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil (May, 1854) provided a hint:

The following was brought out in one of the discussions of the American Institute, at a late meeting of the Farmers' Club: Mr. Hooper, a distinguished naturalist of this city, read a paper upon the introduction of the song-birds of Europe into this country. He stated that in 1852, a committee of gentlemen undertook to introduce these birds into Greenwood Cemetery. Mr. Woodcock, of Brooklyn, then in England, introduced fifty goldfinches, fifty English larks, fifty robin red-breasts, and some others, which have been let loose in the groves of the cemetery. These are now probably well established upon Long Island. 

The original report provides more details. The birds were not released to be useful. They appealed to another motive for bird protection: aesthetics. Importing non-native birds was no different that introducing non-native flowers.

The lover of his country is well pleased at every improvement calculated to bring forth and develop the resources of that country, and thereby secure its permanent prosperity. But his wishes and hopes are not confined to the actual utilitarian improvements, but extend to the ornamental and beautiful; and though his chief efforts are directed to accomplish the first, his heart exults with delight at the discovery or addition of any object which will increase the beauty, and expand the pleasurable interests of the land. 

It was with such sentiments as these, that a few individuals, members of the natural history department of the Brooklyn Institute, were embed, when they expressed the desire to import the choicest song birds of England, with the hope of acclimating them to this country, that they might thereby realize the long cherished idea of increasing the beautiful, the poetic charms, always abounding in the feathered races around our dwellings. They had seen or read of the enthusiastic feeling created feeling created in England by the charming melody of their songsters. They had read the poet's eulogy, they had seen the naturalist's delight in speaking of the nightingale, the song thrush, and the black bird. They had witnessed the fullness of heart in which the very clod-breaking emigrant spoke of the skylark, and that even the time worn, and hope broken amongst them, amid penury and want, with none but heedless strangers near, would look up with smiling memory at the mention of robin red-breast.

 The experiment had the full cooperation of Greenwood Cemetery. In addition to the birds listed in The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil notice above, they released 20 blackbirds and 20 thrushes. "Larks" included both skylarks and woodlarks. There was no mention of house sparrows.

Other releases were motivated by utility. The 1854 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Patents includes a paper titled "On the Importation and Protection of Useful Birds." The useful bird especially targeted for introduction was the skylark. In fact, skylarks had been introduced to the New York area as early as the 1830s, and repeated attempts across the country were attempted. (There is still a small extant community in British Columbia). 

The worms were bad again in 1855. By July they had turned to moths. The editors of the New York Times made a plea (July 10):

The worms on the trees have retired from sight. Some, indeed, have gone through the retirement of the chrysalis state, and now flutter on wings. Hence the myriads of white butterflies that so much amuse the children in Washington-square and Union-park, and are covering the leaves of all trees but the ailanthus with eggs for the next year's harvest of worms. Won't the Farmer's Club please tell us how to kill the next season's crop while in the egg?

Three days later, a reader repeated the call:

It is no longer the "inch-worm," but the measure worm, who spans at a leap one and half to two inches, having outgrown his "inch" dimensions this fruitful season. Mr. TIMES, not wishing to take the business of answering your question from the hands of the Farmers' Club, I would suggest instant death to every miller, regardless of its spotless white, and all millers, bugs, beetles, and butterflies, which leave their vermin behind them. Do we not kill cockroaches, mosquitoes, flies, spiders, and all such like? Do not let the beautiful wings of the miller and butterfly deter you in doing your duty.

The correspondent recommended a number of specific treatments to control the infestations. But on July 17 came a renewed call for help from the birds:

Seeing loud calls made in your paper for aid from the Farmers' Club against the fearful inroads made on your trees, and being of the opinion that appeals to Farmers' Clubs are about as useful in such cases as appeals to the British Government were amidst the starvation in the Crimea, I will suggest a remedy. I mean the common, half-domesticated house sparrow, such as is known to every child in Great Britain, and is, I believe, native to nearly all temperate parts of the world except this country, being larger in its size and brighter in its plumage in climates yet more congenial to it than the British Islands. 

I suppose that a couple of hundred of these birds might be had for two or three cents apiece in Liverpool and if properly taken care of on the passage might easily be landed in New-York, per steamer, in tolerable order; and they would destroy immense numbers of your troublesome insects. It is probably that they would increase so rapidly, if not destroyed by man--that they would thoroughly check the nuisance of which you complain. 

I have often hoped to immortalize myself by introducing this impudent and useful bird to New York and intend to bring some of them over if I should ever visit England. It is certainly less melodious than the lark, which I see by your paper of yesterday is fully naturalized on Long Island, but is not a migratory bird, and is very hardy, and its utility would reconcile New-Yorkers to any harshness in its chirpings, which to me, probably from early associations, appear very cheerful.

The early history of house sparrow introductions is murky. Some accounts have the Brooklyn Institute releasing a small group in Greenwood as early as 1850. Soon, however, there would be successful releases in cities across the United States and Americans would see first hand how rapidly the numbers of house sparrows would increase.

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.