EFFORTS TO SAVE THE BIRDS 



By Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union 



IN the hope of securing an appropriation to provide 

 money for enforcing the provisions of the excellent 



Migratory Treaty Act with Canada, for which con- 

 servationists labored so long, a bill is now before Congress 

 awaiting action. It provides for $170,000 to l>e placed 

 at the disposal of the De- 

 partment of Agriculture, in 

 order that the treaty may 

 be enforced and the migra- 

 tory birds protected accord- 

 ing to its provisions. 



The necessity for such 

 protection is readily ap- 

 parent. In the last forty or 

 fifty years several species of 

 birds have become extinct 

 because they were ruthlessly 

 slaughtered. School chil- 

 dren know of the Great Auk 

 and how it was completelj' 

 wiped out by man on its 

 breeding grounds, being 

 used by countless thousands 

 for fat and fish- 

 ing bait. Hun- 

 dreds of our 

 water birds are 

 without protec- 

 tion, doomed to 

 the same fate, 

 to say not a 

 word with re- 

 spect to a sim- 

 ilar number of 

 land birds. I 

 have always 

 held that we 

 are entirely re- 

 sponsible for 

 the disappear- 

 ance and exter- 

 mination of the 

 bird-life of this 

 country, and 

 that the same 

 destruction has 

 been, and is 

 now going on 

 in other parts 

 of the world, 

 along precisely 

 the same lines. 

 In very rare in- 

 stances it ap- 



RESOLUTION 



Adopted at the International Forestry Confer- 

 ence of the American Forestry .\sso- 

 ciation at Washington, D. C, 

 Jannary 18 19, 1917 



Resolved 



That the American Forestry Association re- 

 spectfully urges the present Congress to make 

 effective, through the necessary legislative action, 

 the recently ratified Convention between the 

 United States and Great Britain for the protec- 

 tion of the useful migratory birds. 



Speedy action is desirable in view of the in- 

 creasing economic loss to all the people, which 

 must ensue if action be deferred until the next 

 Consress. 



THE EXTINCT LABRADOR OR PIED DUCK 

 There are three mounted specimens of this now extinct Duck in the National Museum, two of which are shown in 

 this Illustration. The male is the black and white one and is a Long Island specimen presen ed to the American 

 Museum of Natural History by the late D. G. Elliot, and the Museum '^'"P-'es^t^i/' '"the United States 

 National Museum. The female in the picture originally belonged in the collection of Professor Spencer F.Ba.rd. 

 who got it from Audubon, who. in turn, received it from Daniel Webster. It is a Martha s Vineyard specimen, 

 and was used by Audubon in making his plate of this species. 



pears to be difficult to trace the extermination of some bird 

 to man's having been the cause of it ; this appHes especially 

 to the case of the Labrador or Pied Duck. This beautiful 

 bird disappeared utterly toward the latter part of the last 

 century; there were none left in 1880, and none had been 



observed for a number of 

 years prior to that date. In 

 1868 I saw four or five of 

 them on Long Island Sound, 

 and, to the best of my recol- 

 lection, these were two males 

 and three females. A good 

 skin of a male will now fetch 

 a thousand dollars or more. 

 A number of years ago I 

 saw a fine male, then owned 

 by John Lewis Childs, of 

 Floral Park, Long Island; it 

 was in his [jrivate museum, 

 and, if my memory serves 

 me rightly, he took a trip 

 across the Atlantic to pur- 

 chase it in London, securing 

 the specimen 

 for $1000. Sub- 

 sequently he 

 disposed of it at 

 such a ]3rice 

 that he lost 

 nothing by go- 

 ing to Europe 

 to obtain it. 



No cause for 

 the disappear- 

 ance of this 

 handsome duck 

 has apparently 

 been discov- 

 ered. It was a 

 marine species 

 that never 

 went inland; 

 indeed it was 

 called, among 

 other things, 

 the Shoal Duck, 

 as it had the 

 habit of fre- 

 quenting the 

 shoals and 

 banks at low 

 water to feed. 

 It was an un- 

 suspecting and 

 103 



