Papers on tJie Destniction of Native Birds. 207 



naturalist might be found among the attacking crowd who might 

 subsequently enjoy studying the anatomy and skeleton of a 

 horse. 



If the Doctor pleads for the bad boy, that very often he is 

 thoughtless and does not realize the mischief he is doing, I will 

 join hands with him over that, as I think a great deal of boys and 

 believe much of their mischief is due to thoughtlessness and a lack of 

 knowledge of the nature of the evil they are doing. And the Au- 

 dubon Society is of the same opinion. But the Doctor wants the 

 subject of the bad boy dropped right here. Here is where we take 

 the subject up. 



We believe the public has a duty to perform towards these 

 bad boys and that duty consists in explaining to them the nature of 

 the evil they are doing and by remonstrance and presuasion to get 

 them to desist from this evil habit. One object of the Audubon 

 Society is to inform the public as to the manner in which our birds 

 are destroyed, and to persuade each member and the jniblic to use 

 their influence to protect the birds. 



And now let us approach a very important branch of the sub- 

 ject. Dr. Langdon (}uotes the following figures together with his 

 criticisms as follows: 



"Mr. William Dutcher states (quoted also by your committee,) 

 'that 40,000 terns were killed on Cape Cod in one season; that at 

 Cobb's Island off the the Virginia Coast, 40,000 birds,' mainly 

 gulls and terns, were contracted for by an enterprising woman from 

 New York, to ship to Paris; that 1 1,018 skins were taken on the South 

 Carolina coast in a three month's trip of one dealer ; that seventy 

 thousand were supplied to New York dealers from a village on 

 Long Island. 



Note, if you please, that these large figures apply to 

 'coast' birds, mainly or entirely, therefore composed of gulls, terns, 

 and the 'shore' birds." 



Dr. Langdon further says ; " My friend, Mr. Geo. B. Sennett, 

 is also quoted in this article as stating that he overheard the agent 

 of a millinery firm endeavoring to make a contract in Texas for 

 ten thousand plumes of egrets (a species of heron, or fish-eating 

 wader.)" 



Now the Doctor knows that shore birds include numbers of our 

 waders and that these birds are not limited to the ocean coasts, 

 but in their spring migration pass upward through the United States, 

 and many bieed in the United States, while others pass northward 



