Widmann — A Preliminary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri. 17 



forestationUs still going on, on even a larger scale than ever be- 

 fore. There may come a time when forestry steps in and takes 

 care of the remaining woodland, and men may even begin to 

 plant new forests as they do in other countries, but such arti- 

 ficial groves compare with the primeval forests as docs a corn- 

 field with a marsh or prairie. Many birds now at home in the 

 forest would feel themselves perfect strangers in such a highly 

 cultivated tract of tree growth. There will be no great variety 

 of trees, no twiners and vines of any kinds, no underbrush and 

 thickets of brambles and briars, no decaying tree-tops and no 

 prostrate monarchs of the forest crumbling into dust. The floor 

 of the tract will offer no shelter and no hiding places for the nests 

 of ground-builders: no thickets will harbor the many different 

 songsters, which cannot exist without them; no canopj^ of low 

 trees overgrown with climbers will conceal , as it now so effectively 

 does, the cradles of our summer guests, and wood-peckers will 

 find no insect-infested trees to yield them food and homes. 

 There will be a desolation and stillness throughout these woods 

 that ev(;n the few birds pie&ent will hardiy have the courage to 

 break. Next to the vanishing of the woodland bird comes that 

 of the marsh bird, whose doom is sealed by the draining of the 

 lowland along our rivers and the transformation of lakes and 

 swampy tracts into cornfields. These are no substitute for 

 sedges, reeds, and flags and the manifold vegetation associated 

 with them; nor will the pond and lake dwellers return after their 

 watery haunts have yielded to the plow and harrow. Where do 

 they go? We do not know; some of the smaller birds may be- 

 take themselves to meadows, but the great majority disappear 

 forever from the locality and the extermination of some of these 

 species as breeders in our state is rapidly approaching. Those 

 species of birds which frequent the thickets along the edge of 

 woods and the vegetation which fringes the watercourses have 

 a better chance to endure for a while, but these too will constantly 

 be reduced in numbers by the adoption of the ideal clean culture, 

 which does away with all plant growth from fences and roads, 

 and removes even the last remnants along the creeks and small 

 wet-weather branches. 



The universally deplored decrease of insectivorous and song- 

 birds, generally laid at the door of the egg-collector and the boy 

 with the gun, is therefore easily explained as the direct and in- 

 evitable result of the progress of civilization, which not only 

 changes the physical features of the land, but also introduces 



