1 8 AGRICULTURK OF MAINE. 



Mormons in Salt Lake City have recently erected a monument 

 costing $40,000, to the sea giills, because they saved the early 

 Alornion settlers from starvation by killing off the crickets which 

 destroyed their first crops. 



The passenger pigeons, the wild pigeons so-called, blew across 

 this countr}^ at one time in greater numbers than any other 

 living species. No birds in the world, so far as we know, were 

 ever so numerous on their nesting grounds and roosting grounds, 

 as these pigeons. Many millions of them nested in certain 

 localities, some in Maine, and all through our northern United 

 States. They nested or roosted there in the summer and went 

 south in the winter, and they have been destroyed at all times 

 of year without any regard to law. Thirteen millions were sent 

 from one town in Michigan in two years to the market ; vessels 

 were loaded in bulk with them. I have seen them on North 

 Market Street in Boston in barrels standing the whole length 

 of the street. And today they are gone, absolutely destroyed 

 by the market demand. Therefore we must stop to a certain 

 extent the marketing of wild birds in this way. 



There is another way in which birds have been exterminated 

 and that is the killing of them for ornamental purposes, for the 

 ladies' hats. Thirty years ago it was fashionable to wear terns 

 or sea swallows on bonnets. There was no law enforced against 

 it and hunters came to the islands on the Maine coast where the 

 birds breed and shot them as they flew over. If one fell down 

 and cried out the others came about and the gunner shot them 

 all and left the little young birds to starve in the nests. That 

 is the way the ladies got their feathers ! Ladies, you do not 

 need these feathers ; you are lovely enough without them. 



Just a word about how we are trying to protect these sea birds 

 now. It should interest you people here in Maine because you 

 have some of the finest bird colonies in the world on your coast. 

 Right off your coast are the bird islands. The Audubon societies 

 are trying to protect these birds by appointing as wardens light- 

 house keepers and others up and down the coast to w^atch and 

 protect them. Last summer I spent a little time on Duck Island, 

 near Mt. Desert, where there is a fine colony of Herring gulls, 

 which are there now in great numbers and very tame because 

 they are not hunted and molested. I have seen the lighthouse 

 keeper feed them by hand. Today in almost every one of these 



