Papers on the De struct ion of Native Birds. 199 



Dr. Langdon speaks of having examined the stock of birds of 

 a wholesale millinery house in this city and having failed to find 

 any song birds in them. I called on perhaps the largest dealer in 

 this line of goods in this city, a gentleman who has had thirty 

 years' experience in the business, and perhaps knows more about 

 the trade than any other, and he told me as follows: " This is the 

 wrong season of the year to find many birds in stock. 



"In the better grades of goods you will not find so many 

 native birds. It is in the cheaper stocks that they come, because 

 they are put up in immense lots and can be sold cheap. While we 

 handle the higher priced goods, yet we have had thousands of 

 native birds and feathers of all kinds, such as robins, meadow 

 larks, jays, &c. Egret plumes are very high and scarce, as the 

 birds are nearly exterminated and we can't get them. Paradise 

 birds are very high and becoming scarce. I have seen them sell 

 for from two to three dollars each, and now they bring eight to 

 ten dollars. The wing of one species of dove suitable for dyeing 

 has gone up from six dollars per gross to sixteen dollars per gross. 

 The dealers around New York collect all the time, for if a kind 

 goes out of fashion they lay them away until they are wanted 

 again." 



A lady showed me a barn-swallow she had bought for her hat, 

 and for which she paid fifteen cents, and the store where she 

 bought it had boxes full of them — "Your choice for fifteen cents 

 each." They said they were selling them out cheap, as they were 

 overstocked. I went up to this store to count these birds (fearing 

 lest this might be set down also as an exaggeration). They told 

 me that it was out of season and their stock was packed away. In 

 regard to the New Jersey dealer before mentioned, I did not count 

 his stock of native bluebirds. Dr. Langdon, however, supplies me 

 with their number from his never-failing stock of figures; it was 

 three hundred, or one to thirty square miles. Now, for fear of ex- 

 aggerating, I presume he fails to speak of the many other dealers 

 and collectors in New Jersey of whose stock this one was only a 

 sample. Mr. Allen says in a letter, before referred to: . "Judg- 

 ing by what we see in the East in the cities and towns generally, 

 two-thirds of the birds in point of numbers, used for hats, are our 

 native song-birds." 



If the efforts of man are of no importance in the destruction ot 

 birds, as Dr. Langdon would have us believe, what an immense 

 amount of valuable time and thought has been waited in legislation 



