86 



THE OOLOGIST. 



named families rarely lay over five 

 eggs, while certain ducks lay as high as 

 fifteen and the bob-white often more 

 than twenty. Moreover, the latter 

 two species often raise more than one 

 brood in a season, and it is doubtful if 

 the herons and cranes ever do. This 

 will partially account for the survival 

 of the game birds in spite of the inroads 

 caused by gunners. Furthermore, 

 herons build in colonies termed heron- 

 ies, so that once the breeding place is 

 located their capture is made easy. 

 Thus the herons {A. herodias) of any 

 one county of Michigan, for instance, 

 might be exterminated by one hunter 

 in the course of a season, should there 

 be a demand 



Unlike a great proportion of our 

 American birds, little can be said of the 

 economic value of members of the 

 above mentioned families, either as 

 benefactors to agriculture as insect and 

 weed-seed destroyers, or an articles of 

 food. 



A plea for the herons and cranes then 

 can be made solely on sentimental 

 grounds. It is their esthetic value, not 

 as songsters, but their beauty, the 

 grace which their presence adds to the 

 landscape of the various portions of our 

 continent. The history of a departing 

 race is always a sad one and, judging 

 from the thousands of dollars which are 

 spent annually on our zoological gard- 

 ens, we are inclined to believe that our 

 people admire rather than desire to 

 exterminate any of our native fauna. 

 Truly the places occupied by our herons 

 and cranes is a typical one, and as orn- 

 ithologists we should aim to preserve 

 rather than destroy. 



Already some members of the tribe 

 have been driven to the verge ot exter- 

 mination by the plume hunters. A 

 strong public sentiment has been raised 

 of late in favor of these species, not 

 only in this country, but in various 

 countries of Europe. Under the present 

 conditions the organized bird protectors 



of this country, the Audubon societies, 

 had looked for an increase in these 

 species under our more recent laws re- 

 garding birds, but it is plain to see that 

 should the tendons become popular with 

 our surgeons for ligature and suture 

 purposes the birds might have a still 

 greater enemy. I do not consider the 

 statement sweeping .when I say that 

 the extermination of some species 

 would be only a matter of time. 



However, as the author concludes : 



"Think of the comfort to the civil or 

 military surgeon in isolated places of 

 knowing that he can have a suture ma- 

 terial at the end of his shot gun." 



ALEANDER W. BLAIN, JR. 



Detroit College of Medicine. 



Not enough of any Amercian Crane 

 could be procured to even establish a 

 market. If the price made it an object 

 the colony breeding Herons would suffer 

 to some extent unless some semi-domes- 

 tic industry could be established as 

 with the Skunks and Foxes. — Editor 

 Oologist. 



Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. 



In Review. 



Zoological Quarterly Bulletin, Penn. 

 Dept. of Agi. Vol. II, No. 4, issued un- 

 der direction of Prof. H. A. Surface. 



This is a special Bulletin on Wood- 

 peckers and contains much of value. 



Our attention is specially attracted to 

 the Chapter on the Yellow-bellied Sap- 

 sucker. 



I agree with the authorities quoted to 

 the extent that this bird is solely ac- 

 countable for the rows of parallel holes 

 found drilled around the trunks and 

 sometimes the limbs of trees. 



But I do not think that the quotation 

 given from Dr. Trimble "that the birds 

 make them (these holes) to attract the 

 ants by such tempting bait is a palpa- 

 ble exaggeration of the reasoning pow- 

 er of this bird," is sufficiently proven. 



Fifteen years ago my father had a 



