the plumes of birds that were almost extinct; and even scien- 

 tific institutions oifer .amounts for rare specimens that will 

 induce a man to take great risks. 



W. E. D. Scott in the Auk, Vol. IV, 1887, gives a terrible 

 account of the wiping out of the beautiful American Egret. 

 Years ago, in Florida, there were prairies white with the birds, 

 and even many of the adjoining islands were "alive with 

 Egrets." But w^hat do we find now? Miles and miles of shore 

 with perhaps a single solitary bird. These birds were killed 

 by the hundreds of thousands annually; and the same may be 

 said of its smaller cousin, the Snowy Egret, which, at one time 

 abundant all through the Gulf States, is now all but extinct. 

 Here the "bull's-eye" for every hunter was the beautiful bunch 

 of snow-white aigrettes. 



F, M. Chapman ("Birds of Eastern North America") states: 

 "1 have heard a plume hunter boast of killing 300 herons in a 

 rookery in one afternoon. Another proudly stated that he and 

 hiy companions had killed 130,000 — Herons, Egrets and Terns^ 

 during one winter. ' ' 



But perhaps the most striking example of bird extermina- 

 tion is that of the Passenger Pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius. At 

 the time of Audubon, the number of these birds seemed infinite. 

 A breeding ground reported in 1876, near Petoskey, Mich., was 

 28 miles long and averaged 3 to 4 miles in width, containing 

 upward of 100,000 acres; and from which it was estimated 

 that in 1878, 1,500,000 dead birds and 80,500 live ones were 

 shipped by rail, and probably an equal number by water. This 

 is the largest known nesting ground, although others of large 

 area have been recorded. Wilson, in 1808, estimated that a 

 flock observed by him near Frankfort, Ky., must have contained 

 at least 2,230,272,000 individuals. Prof. H. B. Roney estimates 

 that in 1878 the number of pigeons destroyed in Michigan 

 amounted to 1,000,000,000. These figures may be somewhat 

 exaggerated, yet it certainly shows that immense numbers were 

 destroyed. In 1861 the matter of bird protection came before 

 the Ohio legislature, and the plea was made that the Passenger 

 Pigeon needed no protection. "The Passenger Pigeon needs 

 no protection," they claimed; "wonderfully prolific, having 

 the vast forests of the North for its breeding grounds, traveling 



