288 LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS 



hovering over the beds of brightly tinted flowers, 

 which in the mountains especially grow in the 

 greatest profusion on the borders of the mountain 

 streams." In the same country Mr. Scott found it 

 no uncommon thing to see from twenty to fifty 

 birds in the air at once. Collectors of Humming 

 Birds for the plume markets, however, do not show 

 any discrimination, and in this way many rare 

 species are thinned out. One of the rarest and 

 most beautiful Humming Birds in existence is the 

 gorgeous Sclasphorus rubromitratus. Only two 

 examples are known to science, and yet one of 

 these was discovered in a bird-stuffer's shop in San 

 Francisco, mounted for a lady's hat ! It is even by 

 no means improbable that species as yet unknown 

 to naturalists find their way into ladies' headgear. 

 If ladies must have Humming Birds, pray let us 

 have them collected with discrimination, and in 

 a way that will not extirpate some of the rarest 

 and most curious and beautiful forms. 



Other threatened species are various Herons and 

 Egrets. These birds for the most part breed in 

 colonies, and so wanton and persistent has been 

 their slaughter, not only in Europe and India, but 

 in America, that some districts are almost depopu- 

 lated. Upon the cruelty involved in this annual 



