A bird on the bonnet means so much less bread on the table. A bird in the orchard is a sort of scavenger and pomologist combined, and does his share in giving you a dish of fruit for dinner. The scarlet tanager looks like a living ruby in a green tree; but--I speak bluntly--it looks like a chunk of gore on a woman's bonnet. In behalf of good taste and the birds, I enter my protest against this barbarous Custom.--LEANDER T. KEYSER. What does it cost, this garniture of death? It costs the life which God alone can give; It costs dull silence, where was music's breath; It costs dead joy, that foolish pride may live. Ah, life, and joy, and song, depend upon it, Are costly trimmings for a woman's bonnet. --MAY RILEY SMITH. The program may be diversified by songs about birds. Many suitable for this occasion will be found in a collection called "Songs of Happy Life," made by Sarah J. Eddy. It is published by the Nature Study Publishing Company, of Providence, R. I. VIII THE POETS AND THE BIRDS "The birds are the poets' own," says Burroughs. How could it be otherwise? The bird, with his large brain, quick circulation, and high temperature, is possessed of a tropical, ecstatic soul that blossoms into music as naturally as a bulb bursts into bloom and fragrance. He is a creature of marvelous inheritance. Poetry is a true bird-land, where you shall hear the birds as often as in any meadow or orchard on a May morning. All poets have been their lovers, from the psalmist of old, who knew "all the birds of the mountains," to our own Lowell with his "Gladness on wings--the bobolink is here." The poets, who voice our deepest thoughts, have studied birds with the utmost care. It is astonishing to note the mention made of them in the pages of Browning, Tennyson, and in fact of every great maker of verse. Not merely as adjuncts of the landscape are they mentioned, but with intensity of feeling, as in William Watson's poem on his recovery from temporary loss of mind--one of the most pathetic poems ever written--where he thanks the Heavenly Power for letting him feel once again at home in nature and again related to the birds and to human life. Dr. Van Dyke's wish that, when his twilight hour is come, he "may hear the wood note of the veery" finds response in the heart of every one who has listened to that song. Frequently the poet seems to have entered into the life of the bird and to have found his inner secret, as Keats in the "Ode to a Nightingale":-- Immortal bird, thou wast not born for death, No hungry generations tread thee down. Sometimes the words seem to have caught the rhythm and ripple of the song, as in Browning's reference to the thrush:-- The wise thrush, he sings each song twice over, Lest you think he never could recapture That first fine careless rapture.