Papers on the Destruction of Native Birds. 215 



"Science" gives the following inventory, furnished by an 

 ornithological friend, of what recently met his eye in a Madison 

 Avenue horse car in New York City. "The car contained thirteen 

 women, of whom eleven wore birds, as follows: (i) heads and 

 wings of three European starlings; (2) an entire bird (species un- 

 known,) foreign origin; (3) seven warblers, representing four spec- 

 ies ; (4) a large tern ; (5) the heads and wings of three shore-larks ; 

 (6) the wings of seven shore-larks, and grass finches ; (7) one-half 

 of a gallinule ; (8) a small tern; (9) a turtle-dove; (10) a vireo and 

 a yellow-breasted chat; (11) ostrich plumes. That this exhibition 

 was by no means exceptional as to number or variety is obvious to 

 any one who has given close attention to the ornithological displays 

 one daily meets within street cars and elsewhere, wherever he 

 may travel." 



This examination also corroborates two points of importance : 



First, that out of the eleven women wearing birds, five women 



wore more than one bird apiece, and these five women wore 21 birds, 



so that 27 birds were w^orn among the eleven women, making more 



than two apiece. 



Secondly, out of the 27 birds worn, 18 were useful species and 

 eight of these were song birds. In this instance 66 f per cent of 

 the birds worn were useful species. 



Now it will be observed that these examinations were made of 

 birds as actually worn on ladies' hats, and had nothing to do with 

 a simple examination (within a month) of a few boxes of bird 

 skins in a milliner's shop taken at random from a stock of boxes of 

 bird skins such as Dr. Langdon observed. Very likely, at this 

 season of the year, most of the native birds were sold out. The 

 Doctor found at that examination a great many useful insectivor- 

 ous species, and he found not only that some of these were North 

 American birds^ but he found that out of the 137 birds he examin- 

 ed only 20 were coast or water birds. How does this tally with 

 the first half of his argument? The fact is that it goes to show that 

 the terns and gulls and shore birds form only a small part of the 

 birds killed and that the inland birds, the insectivorous, the useful 

 birds, are killed for the millinery trade and worn on hats in enor- 

 mous quantities. 



Last year, before this subject was up, I stopped in front of a 

 millinery store in this city, and among the birds there exposed on 

 hats for sale, I noticed a snowbunting and a woodpecker dyed red. 

 Now both of these birds are useful,, even if it be admitted as my 



