These are the stories of the birds of America – and the people who named them, ate them, studied them, and saved them.
“Wherever there are large settlements of Italians,” wrote the prominent conservationist William Temple Hornaday in 1913, “the reports are the same. They swarm through the country every Sunday, and shoot every wild thing they see. Wherever there are large construction works, —railroads, canals or aqueducts, —look for bird slaughter, and you are sure to find…
“In St. Paul, Minnesota, the boys like to go to school, and when they get into the sixth grade it is hard to pry them out. At that stage in their schooling a wise board of education has instituted manual training, for every fourteen-year-old boy is a carpenter at heart. And they don’t make corner…