INSECT-EATING BIEDS. 



199 



turbecl nursery of birds. He cuts down the trees in which for 

 centuries they have reared their young. He brings with him 

 his gun, and as long as there are any 

 grouse or other game-birds in the 

 neighborhood, the sharp report and 

 murderous fire are his daily greeting 

 to the wild creatures of the wood. 

 He dams the streams and turns them 

 aside and uses their power to de- 

 stroy the forests on their banks. His 

 snares are set in the valley and his 

 traps on the hill-top. His children 

 search the woods for birds'-ego;s and 

 brins: them home to be admired a mo- 

 ment as playthings without a thought 

 of the happy homes they have de- 



T /. li 1 i? i-j Fig. 10.- Upper fig. Yellow Warbler. 



Stroyed tor the sake OI a moments Lower fig. Black and TellowWarWer. 



pleasure. In short, man has soon taught the creatures, who 

 scarcely feared him at first, that he is a monster to be dreaded, 

 who will give them no rest nor peace. Thus it happens, that 

 as the centuries roll on, one species after another grows more 

 and more scarce, or becomes altogether extinct, and in their 

 loss the world loses more than at the death of the last repre- 

 sentative of a long line of impe- 

 rial princes. Let us notice from 

 history a few instances of the 

 gradual decrease of some of our 

 birds, that any who are doubting 

 may be convinced. Hear what 

 Audubon testifies : "When I first 

 removed to Kentucky, the pin- 

 nated grouse were so plenty that 

 they were held in no higher esti- 

 mation as food than the most common flesh, and no hunter of 

 Kentucky deigned to shoot them. In those days, during the 

 winter the grouse would enter the farm-yard and feed with 

 the poultry, alight on the houses, or walk in the very streets 

 of the villasres. I recollect having caught some in a stable at 

 Henderson where they had followed some wild turkeys. In 

 the course of the same winter a friend of mine who was fond 



Fig. 11. — Yellow-mraped Warbler. 

 droica coronata. 



Len- 



