126 BIRD FRIENDS 



antagonistic, and that as the population of the United 

 States increases the number of birds must necessarily 

 decrease. 



On the author's place of three acres, situated on 

 the edge of a city of ten thousand population, there 

 were fifteen pairs of birds representing seven species, 

 nesting during 1914. One village of twenty-three 

 acres showed an average of seventeen pairs of birds 

 per acre. One man in Chevy Chase, Maryland, 

 reported thirteen pairs nesting in a half-acre yard. 

 The record for the largest number of birds comes 

 from a farm in Maryland, where fifty-nine pairs of 

 birds were found nesting on a single acre. 



In this census the robin was found to be the most 

 abundant bird, with six pairs per farm of fifty- 

 eight acres, and the English sparrow next, with 

 five pairs per farm. For every one hundred robins 

 reported there were eighty-three English sparrows, 

 forty-nine catbirds, thirty-seven brown thrashers, 

 twenty-eight house wrens, twenty-seven kingbirds, 

 and twenty-six bluebirds. 



It may be considered, then, that the following 

 statements represent the approximate truth at the 

 present time relative to the abundance of birds: (1) 

 some birds have become extinct; (2) other birds are 

 threatened with extinction; (3) the game-birds, wild 

 fowl, shore-birds, and egrets have greatly decreased 

 in numbers in recent years; (4) hawks and owls 

 have decreased to some extent; (5) song-birds have 



