BIRD DAY IN AMERICA.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13394, 30 May 1914, Page 10

BIRD DAY IN AMERICA.

They have a way of doing; things both thoroughly and well in . America* and, therefore, when the Bird Day mover ment was once launched, it floated immediately into" the mid-stream of-popu-larity. The • latest efforts -to •; further spread the work of mercy toward the bird life of. the States/ was. the. bird masque "Sanctuary,"' writes Mi? Percy MacKaye, , which* under the -personal patronage- of ' White-, House, was .performed last Septenibeiy to fittingly, dedi} cate Mr. Ernes V Harold Bayiies' "riovt femous bird sanctuary, in Merid6h, Now Hampshire. That the -idea- was taken- up by. the right people is. abundantly ed by the fact that Miss Eleanor Wilson, daughter of the President, appear r ed as Ornis, the' Bird Spirit, while* the President came personally from Washington to see the performance, which included such- fine . performers as Misses Juliet Barrett Rublee, Percy MacKaye himself, Joseph Linden Smith, Ernest Harold Baynes 1 , and Charles Douvilfe Coburn, who was the plumage hunter* '

. This remarkably touching, masque, in fine verse, was produced in a finished manner, and mounted with great beauty, and at the end .of February it. was repeated on the stage of th©\~Astov ballroom in New York. ■ . ' . Later on there will be convened, tinder the auspices of the League for Political Education, the; National History Museum, the Audubon Society, the Meriden Bird Club, and other kindred associations, a unique conference of artists of the theatre and naturalists to discuss^ an address by Mr MacKaye on the relation of dramatic art- to-; Nature conservation, . one aspect . of which the acted masque, will illustrate. "Many notable members of the -world of \ art and society/' says the Century Maga-. zine, are preparing , to participate with symbolic bird costumes in the spectacle, which will conclude With a festival dance. Tho masque is also to bo performed in London.

Speakmg of the performance, the Century says : "Thus the international cause of bird conservation is, for the first time, being served by the art of the theatre as a vital civic influence."