194 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



Man is an unnatural additicmal exterminating check. J. A. 

 Allen says: "Whatever man does to destroy birds is purely a 

 drain upon the supii)ly of bird life, added to the natural checks by 

 which nature keeps the balance even, and is disturbing and 

 destructive just in proportion to the extent to which it is carried, 

 and for which nature has no means of compensation." 



Against the killing of food birds under proper restricti(Mis, or 

 killing birds for any scientific or educational purposes, I have 

 nothing to say, but to shoot a beautiful and harmless egret, that the 

 few plumes that grow on its back may be used to make a 

 grotesque hat or bonnet look still more grotesque is cer- 

 tainly a very bad economic proceeding, to say the least. If 

 the idler who shoots for food the robins, thrushes and other 

 song birds, as is" largely done in some of the Southern States, 

 would devote the price of the ammunition and the time it takes to 

 shoot them to procuring some other kind of food he would quicker 

 stock his larder. 



If the growers of small fruits are not willing tocompensate the 

 birds for the benefits they confer on him in the destruction of 

 injurious insects by giving some fruit, then he has a right to shoot 

 them or drive them away. When a lot of cedar birds or robins 

 come into one of my trees of choice cherries the way they gobble up 

 cherries makes me tired, but it would be very bad policy to shoot 

 them for it. As the old English farmer said. "Surely I can well 

 afford to give a penny's worth of fruit fora shilling's worth of song." 



Dr. Langdon says that any effort of man would not make any 

 appreciable difference in the numbers of our song-birds, and that if 

 this Government would appropriate a million of dollars to extermi- 

 nate them it would make no difference in their numbers. This is 

 a most extraordinary statement. Let us see what man's ability as 

 an exterminator is. 



Perhaps the earliest job of bird extermination of which there 

 is any evidence Avas the destruction of .-Epiornis inaximus. While 

 the natives of Madagascar assert that a few of these gigantic birds 

 remain in some of the most secluded parts of the island, yet the 

 probability is that they are totally exterminated, and without doubt 

 by the hand of man, as the famous French traveler, Alfonse 

 Grandidier, emphatically assures us. 



The Moas of New Zealand were exterminated by man at a 

 comparatively recent period. The "Dodo" {Didus incepfiis), the 

 great pigeon of the Mauritius, became extinct about 1693, killed 



