Has the bird a right to live? According to our first principle he has if he is more useful alive than dead. What, then, does he do that can be called really useful? If he is a diver, a gull, a tern, or any one of the really seafaring birds, he eats fish, water insects, offal and whatever small animals resort to the water, doing little or no harm and a great deal of good. Near large sea-coast cities the gulls dispose of the garbage which is taken out a distance from shore and dumped into the ocean, and so prevent its drifting back upon the beach. If he is a duck, goose or swan, he feeds upon fish, the plants which grow in the water and at its margins, upon the insects and worms which inhabit the ooze at the bottom, and sometimes upon grains in the fields and about the marshes. He does a great deal of good and rarely any harm. If he is a heron, crane, rail, coot or gallinule, his food is frogs, snakes, insects and worms, and so he is useful. If he is a snipe, sandpiper or plover, he destroys large numbers of insects, worms and such small animals as are to be found in wet places, and is always a very useful help to the farmer. If he is a bird of the fowl kind or a pigeon, he eats grain mostly, but also many insects. He may sometimes do a little damage to the ripe grain, but he usually gathers that which has gone to waste. If he is a vulture, hawk, eagle or owl, he destroys great quantities of animals that are harmful to man, not often visiting the poultry yard, and so does great good. If he is a kingfisher he eats small fish mostly, and so is not harmful. Among all the remaining birds there are but a few which do not feed almost entirely upon insects or other creatures which menace vegetation. Even these seed eaters feed the young upon insects and worms, and do good by destroying vast quantities of injurious plants. Those which eat ripe fruit pay for what they eat by scattering broadcast the seeds of the fruit. When there is no ripe fruit they eat insects and worms. The crows and blackbirds and bobolink are rather overly fond of green corn and ripe grains in the fall of the year, but they pay for what they eat by destroying immense quantities of insects and worms in the spring. When the whole life of the bird is taken into account we cannot escape the fact that the bird has a natural right to life on account of the good he does. [Illustration: WILSON'S THRUSH. 2/3 Life-size. COPYRIGHT 1900, BY A. W. MUMFORD, CHICAGO.]