1915] The Ottawa Naturalist. 25 



industrious work, would not nearly equal the destruction caused 

 in one year by millinery plumage hunters. When we consider 

 the constant, widespread persecution and the number of widely 

 distributed sportsmen it has taken to reduce our game birds, 

 it is obvious that a few scattered collectors can have little, if 

 any, influence upon the bird population. The ideal conditions 

 suggested before, call for a collector in every county. If 

 we had but one dozen sportsmen shooters in every county 

 would game be scarce to-day? 



There is also a sentiment against the scientist collecting 

 "rare birds" on the supposition that if these were allowed to 

 breed they would become common. There are practically no 

 birds, but game, raptorial and plumage forms, that suffer 

 systematic persecution. The number of small or rare birds that 

 are killed by human agencies, except for profit or food, is on the 

 average negligible. Are there a dozen people in Canada, 

 seeking or hunting for Cory's Least Bittern? How many would 

 know one if they saw it? The species has had hundreds of 

 generations in which to become common, if they are rare now 

 it is due to the action of still operating natural causes. The 

 rarity of a creature not especially or generally hunted for profit 

 is an indication that it is not adapted to conditions and is 

 nearing extinction through natural causes. Rarity obviouslv 

 just precedes extinction. 



Of course with species that are much hunted, or that are 

 rare, owing to the geographical limitations of the habitable or 

 breeding ranges, the question is different. Scientific collectors 

 have occasionally gone into small .isolated colonies and practically 

 wiped out a species that, but for them, might have survived 

 for a while longer. But even in these cases the fact of such limited 

 range itself indicates that the species is declining and its end 

 has been only hastened. A dominant, virile race will tend 

 continually to spread ; that it has not done so, it is an indication 

 of inherent weakness in the species. 



The Passenger Pigeon is often pointed out as an example 

 of man's ruthlessness, and a great deal of sentimentality has 

 been exercised over it. In the first place, great flocks of birds 

 of this species would to-day be incompatible with agricultural 

 pursuits. If man destroyed the Passenger Pigeon it was by 

 extensive netting operations against them and not by the 

 desultory shooting of scattered farmers and sportsmen. Yet 

 the last year of netting at the Petosky rookeries left countless 

 pigeons alive. The fact that few of these returned the next 

 spring was no fault of the trappers. For years thereafter 

 occasional flocks and bunches of Passenger Pigeons were seen; 



