224 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



the latter class and their use for millinery purposes. My other 

 statement that there is no record of any of our familiar song-birds 

 having become rare or extinct over any wide extent of our coun- 

 try remains unshaken; nor does your committee give the various 

 actual causes for decrease in limited localities proper recogni- 

 tion. 



In short, the report of your second committee is a reply that 

 does not answer, a statement that does not refute. So far as the 

 main points at issue are concerned, therefore, and resting upon the 

 evidence, I submit to your judgment {iwt your sympathy) that the 

 efforts of your second committee have been a failure in their 

 avowed object of disproving my conclusions ; and that the reports 

 of your committee respecting the extinction or notable decrease of 

 North American song-birds for millinery purposes, still contain, I 

 am glad to say, more poetry than truth. 



