196 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



and Audubon to the present day. D. G Elliott, in speaking of the 

 birds' arrival at the roost, says : 



"The arrival of this great host is an impressive sight. Long 

 before their crowded ranks appear their aijproach is heralded by a 

 sound resembling the rising of a gale of wind, increasing in loud- 

 ness until they hurl themselves in'.o their chosen nightly abode, 

 when the din caused by the flapping of myriads of wings, the strug- 

 gle for a place on the trees, the constant change of position and 

 the crashing of over-loaded branches, is so completely overpower- 

 ing that not only the human voice cannot be heard, but even the 

 discharge of a gun would pass unnoticed. At one time pigeon 

 roosts were not uncommon in the United States, but they are grad- 

 ually disappearing, for the wild pigeon, like all other game, from 

 lack of wise and requisite protection in the United vStates is being 

 brought slowly, but surely, to its final extermination." 



Colonel Harris, President of fhe Cuvier Club, with Mr. Benj. 

 Robinson, has fished at Kelly's Island, Lake Erie, every spring 

 for many years. Last April while there they did not see a robin, 

 bluebird or thrush during their stay on the*island, where they for- 

 merly saw many. In cruising around fishing, and i)articularly on 

 the shoals where they caught their minnows for bait in former years, 

 they saw flocks of gulls and terns, and particularly were terns very 

 numerous, flying in flocks of hundreds, yet this season two or three 

 were the most they saw together. They were informed by resi- 

 dents that there had not been more shooting than usual, but the 

 birds had been killed before they got there. Mr. H. C. Cailbert- 

 son, however, informs me that the scarcity of song birds on Kelly's 

 Island is due. to the residents, who turn out at the time the grapes 

 ripen and shoot these birds, imagining they eat some of the grajjes — 

 by killing them for several years, the regular migrants become ex- 

 terminated, and it is only by fortuitous circumstances that any 

 birds get to the island. Here is an instance where man extermi- 

 nates the birds over a given area ; apply the same methods to a 

 larger area and you would have the same results. 



In 1884, Mr. Warner, a bird dealer of New Orleans, shipped 

 over ten thousand nonpareils to different points, mostly to Europe. 

 In 1885 he was only able to obtain four thousand for shipment, 

 and this season (1886) he had an order from a dealer of New York 

 for five hundred, andall he could furnish him was two hundred, 

 so great was, the scarcity of birds, and the consequent utter failure 

 of his bird catchers to secure them. 



