SUGGESTED PROGRAM FOR BIRD DAY

Invocation.

Reading: Life of Audubon.

Talk by teacher, superintendent or some prominent game protectionist on the subject of the conservation of birds, animals and fish, and their relation to man.

Recitation: The Brookside and the Hillside. Redwing. Reading: How to Go A-Birding. The Duty of the Citizen Toward Wild Life.

Essay on the Oven-Bird, Last of the Wild Pigeon, or Sage Hen.

Recitation: Bird Biography. Elegy-Written in Spring. The Meeting of the Waters. Hawk's Challenge.

Reading: Early Spring. Alabama Game Laws. Insects are the True Rulers of the Universe.

Essay on the slaughter of birds for ornamentation. By pupil.

Recitation: There Was a Cherry-tree. Robert Burns. The Birds. The Spirit of the Eagle. The Little Minister. The Sagamore.

Paper on King Rail, The Barn Owl, The Dowitcher, The Gadwall.

Recitation: Beauties of Nature. A Grosbeak in the Garden. The Throstle. To a Water-fowl.

Reading-The Worm the Bird Did Not Eat. The Phoebe Bird.

Recitation: Fishing. O Pumpkin Pie. The Song of the Brook.

Adjourn to a suitable place and plant a tree or shrub that will be dedicated to the birds.

Bird Sanctuaries-and a practical demonstration of Bird Houses, Bird Baths and Bird Feeding Devices.

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON

1780-1851

HOUGH of French parentage, and during his early years Teducated was educated in France, Audubon was born in Louisiana, and always called the United States of America "his own beloved country," and returned to it when about eighteen. He married in 1808, Lucy Bakewell, the daughter of an English neighbor. He took his wife to Louisville, Ky., where he opened a store "which went on prosperously when I attended to it," he writes later, "but birds were birds then as now, and my thoughts were turning toward them as the objects of my greatest delight. I shot, I drew, I looked on nature only; my days were happy beyond human conception and beyond this I really cared not."

Leaving Louisville and many kind friends behind them they went to Henderson, Ky. "Like my family the village was quite small. The latter consisted of six or eight houses; the former of my wife, myself and a small child. Few as the houses were we fortunately found one empty. It was a log cabin. * The woods were amply stocked with game, the rivers with fish, and now and then the hoarded sweets of the industrious bees were brought from some hollow tree to our table."

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In spite of strenuous endeavors to keep his wandering tendencies under control and to earn support for his family, his various undertakings failed, partly through his own lack of business capacity, but still more through the dishonesty of those in whom he implicitly trusted. At last "I parted with every particle of property I had to my creditors, keeping only the clothes I wore on that day, my original drawings, and my gun." "Nothing was left to me but my humble talents. Were those talents to remain dormant under such exigencies? Was I to see my beloyed Lucy and children suffer and want bread? Was I to repine because I had acted like an honest man? Was I inclined to cut my throat in foolish despair? No!

I had talents, and to them I instantly resorted." For a time he found successful occupation in drawing portraits in black chalk, but never lost an opportunity to add to his collection of drawings of birds, which he now began to think of publishing.

In 1821 he took a position as tutor in a family near New Orleans, His wife also taught, and by their united exertion their boys, Victor and John, were put to school and a happy home life secured for a few years. In 1826 the proceeds of a successful dancing class, $2,000, with his own and his wife's savings, enabled him to sail with his beloved drawings for England, the goal of his hopes for many years. Letters from friends in America brought him new friends in England and Scotland, "who praised my Birds, and I felt the praise to be honest." All praise for his drawings delighted him, but the social attentions showered on him and the demands for papers on many subjects, Birds, Quadrupeds, Indians, tried him not a little. "A man who never looked into an English grammar and who has forgotten most of what he learned in French and Spanish onesa man who has always felt awkward and shy in the presence of a stranger-a man habituated to ramble alone, with his thoughts usually bent on the beauties of nature herself-this man, me, to be seated opposite Dr. Brewster in Edinburgh reading one of my puny efforts at describing habits of birds that none but an Almighty Creator can ever know, was ridiculously absurd.” He naively writes: "The Captain (Basil Hall) wishes to write a book, and he spoke of it with as little concern as I should say, "I will draw a duck;' is it not surprising?" His pictures were exhibited, he was made a member of the leading scientific societies, and, best of all, his plans for publication took definite shape; the methods and cost. of printing were agreed upon, and subscribers began to enroll themselves. He returned to America, and to procure further material for his great undertaking he journeyed from Labrador to the Florida Keys. "In all climates and all weathers, scorched by burning suns, drenched by piercing rains, frozen by the fiercest colds; now diving fearlessly into the densest forest, now wandering alone over the most savage regions; in perils, in difficulties, in doubts, with no companions to cheer his way-listening only to the sweet music of birds or to the sweeter music of his own thoughts, he faithfully kept his path. The records of man's life contains few nobler examples of strength of purpose and indefatigable energy."