192 Cinchinati Society of Natural History, 



FIFTH PAPER. 

 By Mr. Chas. Dury. 

 (Read June 16, 1886). 



Ladies and Gentlemen — When reciuested by the Lecture 

 Committee of this society to prepare a paper on the destruction of 

 native birds, I did not understand that the object was simply to 

 speak of song-birds, as popularly restricted, but that all birds were 

 to be considered that merit our protection (and what birds do not?) 

 Some of the statistics presented vvere those offered by the most 

 eminent observers and ornithologists of the East. And far from 

 their being exaggerations, the fact is the truth has not been half 

 told. The absence of sea birds from their former haunts is sooner 

 noticed than the absence of forest birds, and statistics are easier to 

 obtain. Though, in regard to other birds, they are neither want 

 ing nor unreliable. In the paper referred to above I might have 

 brought forward many more facts and statistics had I sup])osed any 

 one would have disputed the point or questioned the advisability 

 of doing everything that could be done either by the force of pub- 

 lic opinion or legislation to protect our beautiful and persecuted 

 birds. The report comes from all parts of the country of the de- 

 crease in the number of native birds. Mr. Allen writes me: 



" We are receiving letters from everywhere, deploring the de- 

 crease of small birds, showing their decrease is a fact so palpable 

 as to attract the attention of very many of our correspondents living 

 at widely separated localities." I should be loth to believe that 

 these persons, many of them eminent in science, have either exag- 

 gerated or falsified. The effects of such a paper as the one read 

 at the last regular meeting of the society must be most pernicious. 

 A person at the meeting was heard to remark: "We need not feel 

 so badly after all about it." "A wink is as good as a nod to a 

 blind horse." Create a market for our birds and relax the frown 

 of public opinion and they are gone. The protectors of game and 

 other birds have an almost impossible task to perform, and with 

 protective laws (whose language can- not be misunderstood) on the 

 statute books of nearly every State and Territory in the Union, the 

 numbers of our birds are found growing less each year. 



Dr. Langdon in the paper referred to estimates the number of 

 birds in the Western Continent, with fifteen million miles of area, 



