258 THE AMERICAN BIRD MARKET. [Aug. 



THE AMEEICAK BIRD MARKET. 



THE Rural New Yorker deprecates the cruel fashion of American 

 ladies wearing stuffed birds as ornaments on their hats, or 

 carrying fans similarly ornamented. It is already notably depleting 

 the groves of joyous songsters, who are at the same time insect 

 destroyers. A single firm in Xew York not long since gave one 

 order for 100,000 skins of birds of various kinds ; while factories at 

 Niagara Falls and elsewhere are usmg tens of thousands for the 

 adornment of feathered fans. And thus the robin, the wren, the 

 blue bird or the oriole, have come under the merciless law of supply 

 and demand. Present activities, if not checked, in this way presage 

 future extinction. Indeed, the New York bird market for this and 

 other purposes is of large dimensions. So many as 60,000 canaries 

 are sold there every year, besides 3000 parrots, 1000 mocking-birds, 

 3000 to 4000 goldfinches, as well as others of the multitudinous 

 bird varieties. Amongst regular breeders and dealers so much as 

 £21,000 is annually interchanged for canaries, and fully £42,500 

 for other birds. 



Mr. Sennet, of the Xew York Museum of Natural History, 

 states, in a recent issue of Forest and Stream, " that on 

 entering a market about midday, towards the close of March, 

 in Norfolk, Va., he found, besides the legitimate game birds, 

 no fewer than over thirty of the rarer species exhibited on the 

 sale booths, and in very poor condition — in truth, reduced to skin 

 and bone. 



" In point of numbers the robin was by far the most numerous of 

 those not considered game birds. Next to the robin was the field 

 lark, then cherry birds or cedar waxwiogs and blackbirds (including 

 the grackles and cowbirds). Woodpeckers were upon almost every 

 string and bench. The sparrows were perhaps the most prominent 

 of the remaining birds in the list. Some twelve or fifteen booths or 

 stands had these birds for sale, along with limited quantities of 

 every conceivable animal and vegetable that the fields, woods, or 

 water could contribute. While some stalls had three or four hun- 

 dred small birds, others would have but a dozen or two. I regretted 

 that I could not have seen the market before the sale of the day 

 began, as undoubtedly most of the stuff had been disposed of before 

 I arrived upon the scene. Nearly all the vendors were coloured 

 people, and doubtless most of the birds were captured by the same 

 class. A glance at the list will show an utter disregard of the Game 

 Laws, if indeed such laws exist. Several purchases were made 



