1 98 Ci>icinnati Society of Natural History. 



that more shot was shipped to Kentucky by them, than to any other 

 State, for nearly every man and boy has a gun, and they bang 

 away at every Hving creature. 



Mr. Starbuck also mentions the Pacific coast, and speaks of 

 the Chinese as being the most skillful bird-trappers in the world. 

 He says they catch and eat everything in the shape of a bird. In 

 making inquiries of taxidermists and bird collectors as to the cause 

 of the scarcity and great decrease of the birds there, they imformed 

 him it was due to the enormous numbers killed by sportsmen, col- 

 lectors of birds and their eggs, and shooters generally, for California 

 has supplied the world with the peculiar fauna of the Pacific 

 slope. 



The migration of birds is not thoroughly understood, but 

 enough is known to show that the migration movement is not a 

 pell-mell headlong rush without an object, except to change loca- 

 tion ; but an orderly, systematic, intelligent movement actuated by 

 that grandest and most wonderful incentive, the perpetuation of 

 the species. That birds come back to the same spot where they 

 reared their broods the year before, bringing their young with 

 them, is well proven. "Migrating birds have an inherited talent 

 for geography," as Weissmann happily expresses it. Peculiarly 

 marked birds run the gauntlet of their innumerable enemies and 

 come back several years in succession to certain spots. Thus we 

 see that birds that migrate up the Ohio Valley do not mingle with 

 those that pass up the Upper Mississippi, except at the point in the 

 South where they pass the winter. Consecpiently if the fittest sur- 

 vive the many checks to their increase and return to their nesting 

 ground to be there persistently persecuted and killed, then that 

 locality will soon become destitute of bird life. That man, by 

 friendly advances and protection, can increase the number of birds 

 in a locality can be easily shown. Twenty-seven years ago when 

 my father moved to our present home place in Avondale, there 

 was but one stunted tree on the place, it being a meadow. The 

 only bird I saw there on my first visit was a meadow lark (which I 

 foolishly shot, and got a terrible raking from the old gentleman for 

 doing it). The place was soon thickly planted with trees and the 

 birds began to appear, until I have recorded up to J^ine i, 1886, 

 114 species, ranging from one to many individuals of each species. 

 If it is in the power of man to so largely increase the numbers of 

 birds in a locality, why could he not decrease them ? 



