"Certificates of heartlessness," a writer in _Our Dumb Animals_ calls them and we know of no better appellation to apply. Women of fashion, says the same writer, have been urged to use the power which they possess--and it is a power greater than that of law--to bring this inhumanity to an instant stop. The appeals for the most part were in vain. Birds continue to be slaughtered by millions upon millions, simply for the gratification of a silly vanity of which intelligent women should be ashamed. Whole species of the most beautiful denizens of field and forest, woodland and shore, have been almost or quite exterminated. Song birds have been driven further and further from the dwellings of men; our country is stripped of one of its least costly and most charming delights and all that women may deck themselves in conformity with a fad. A bill for the protection of birds was passed on March 24, by the Senate of the United States, introduced into the House of Representatives on March 25, and referred to the Committee on Agriculture. It is entitled "An Act for the Protection of Song Birds." We confess, says the same writer, to a feeling of humiliation when reading this bill, because it seems a just indictment of the women of America on a charge of willful, wanton, reckless inhumanity. That such legislation should be made necessary, through vanity alone, ought in our estimation, to bring the blush of shame to every good woman's cheek. "I didn't think," is the usual reply of the fair sex, when approached on the subject. "I didn't think." Aye you didn't think, but that plea can no longer avail when press and pulpit, in the name of humanity, so earnestly and eloquently plead with you to spare the birds. If compassion for the little creature whose life went out in agony, to supply that ornament above your brow does not move you to abstain from wearing such in the future, then the knowledge that some of the "best" people in the country consider it "bad form," perhaps will. --E. K. M. The lady has surely a beautiful face, She has surely a queenly air; The bonnet had flowers and ribbon and lace; But the bird has added the crowning grace-- It is really a charming affair. Is the love of a bonnet supreme over all, In a lady so faultlessly fair? The Father takes heed when the Sparrows fall, He hears when the starving nestlings call-- Can a tender woman _not care_? --SUSAN E. GAMMONS, _Our Dumb Animals_. [Illustration: EGGS.]