How does the value of the bird's body used for food compare with the good the bird would do if allowed to live? Reckoned in dollars and cents the flesh on an average bird's body would be worth, say twenty-five cents at the price of good beef. But let us say seventy-five cents to do full justice to the greater excellence of the bird's flesh as food. We must consider, however, that the most of the birds which are not good for food, civilized food, are among our largest birds. The size of the average edible bird would therefore be greatly reduced, so our estimate is a very liberal one. But during the average lifetime of the average bird it would destroy many times its own weight of injurious animals. Careful investigations have shown that these injurious animals would do many times more damage than the worth of the bird's flesh. We have no need, then, to take into account the real good we derive in the pleasure which the beautiful plumage, the sweet voice and the graceful form bring to us. That is an added value which nothing can compensate for. How does the value of the bird's skin as an ornament of dress or of the dwelling, or as a scientific specimen compare with its value as a living creature? As an ornament it may be a thing of beauty, or a hideous caricature. Even as a thing of beauty it could not be made more so than the living bird. No one will be willing to declare that the quill, or the wing, or the skin is _necessary_ to the bonnet. Many of us honestly think that the bonnet would look far better without either. As a scientific specimen the skin will serve some purposes, some legitimate purposes, which the living bird will not. The living bird cannot be fully understood without a careful study of its structure any more than a living man can. Unfortunately, birds which die a natural death cannot be found while their bodies are fit to study, if found at all. But happily, the number of dead birds necessary for study is limited. Even for scientific purposes there is no possible excuse for indiscriminate slaughter. Collecting should be left to those and those only who know what is needed and are content with enough. In these days of large collections and advanced knowledge, it is the rare exception when the dead bird will be more useful than the living one. These exceptions do not affect the right of the bird to live. Boys who begin to study birds have a passion for making a collection of the eggs. Eggs are beautiful things, and they look well in a cabinet properly arranged. But all of the eggs which most boys would be likely to find are already well known, so that a study of the eggs in the nest and of the young birds will teach him far more that we really need to know about the birds. The greater good is not to make a collection of birds' eggs.