1 82 Cincinuali Society of Natural History. 



York, to ship to Paris; that ii,oi8 skins were taken on the South 

 Carolina coast in a tliree. nionllis' trip of one dealer ; that seventy 

 tlioiisand were sup])lie{l to New York d^-alers from a village on 

 l.ong Island. N(;te, if you please, that these large figures api)ly to 

 ^^ coast" birds, mainly or entirely, therefore composed of gulls, 

 terns and the "shore " birds. 



My friend, Mr. (ieo. ii. Sennett, is also quoted in this article 

 as stating that he overheard the agent of a millinery firm endeavor- 

 ing to make a contract in Texas for ten thousand plumes of egrets 

 (a species of heron, or fish-eating wader). 



Then, in another j^lace, is an estimate that the number of 

 grebes shipped, mainly from the Pacific slope of North America, 

 must range far into the tens if not hundreds of thousands. And 

 my friend, Mr. Dury, has drawn your attention to the fact that the 

 herons and other water birds have been destroyed by thousands in 

 the swamps of ]'"lorida. 



Now, the ari:;iiinnit sought to be sustained by this startling 

 array of figures is, that we are in danger of allowing the extermina- 

 tif)n of s|)ecies desirable to man on account of their song, or 

 economically valuable to the agriculturist as insect destroyers ; and 

 the poeticaUpiolations and crude generalizations which are invoked 

 to excite our sympathies are such as relate to these si)ecies — /. 

 e., song-birds. In other words, while in the statistics cited, mainly 

 gulls, terns, herons and "shore birds" appear [jrominently in the 

 foreground, the moral is pointed chiefly, if not entirely at " song- 

 l)irds " — so that the non-ornithological reader is extremely liable 

 to the impression that the figures themselves apply to "song-birds" 

 as much as to any others, and to have his sympathies aroused ac- 

 cordingly. Put when informed that these are almost wholly 

 marine species — gulls, terns and "shore birds" — the scavengers of 

 the ocean and ornithological tramjjs, so to speak, most of them be- 

 ing migrants, whose home is far beyond the confines of civiliza- 

 tion ; whose only "song" is a mere "screech or scpiawk," any- 

 thing but musical to human ears, and which are not in any de- 

 gree beneficial to man exce])t for their feathers — t/icsc facts con. 

 sidcrcd, does it really seem so bad to make merchandise of their 

 plumage for ornamental purj)Oses ? 



As for the destruction of thousands of herons and other water-- 

 birds in the swamps of I'lorida and Texas, this affects neither song- 

 birds nor civilization, since their notes are no more ])leasing than 

 those of the gulls and terns; and they are doomed to extir])ation 



