72 JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The article is entitled "Netting Wild Pigeons," and while it 

 presents facts of value in the natural history of the bird, one ex- 

 periences in reading it the thrill which belongs with the reading of 

 the French revolution, or the massacres attendant upon our past 

 Indian wars. 



But what we wish to consider in this comment is that phantom 

 which roams the minds of well meaning men interested in birds, 

 and honest sportsmen. It is that notion that birds or other animals, 

 upon experiencing a degree of danger, inconvenience, or persecu- 

 tion, philosophically accept the situation and suddenly change their 

 habits, routes of migration, or abode. It attributes to them a degree 

 of reason found only in the animal heroes of an entertaining class 

 of literature recently in evidence and now on the wane. 



The present period is a critical one in the history of various spe- 

 cies of birds. Drastic measures alone can save some species from 

 sharing the fate of the Great Auk, the L^abrador Duck and the Pas- 

 senger Pigeon. Fortunately the army of those awake to the situa- 

 tion is not now^ small, and is growing, but one of the most subtle 

 dangers which the leaders in this protective movement must over- 

 come is this phantom of philosophical acceptance, and cheerful res- 

 ignation of the persecuted birds. Migratory routes and geograph- 

 ical distribution are so firmly fixed as a part of the hereditary train- 

 ing of birds, that their origins are associated with conditions belong- 

 ing to past geological ages, and still they are followed out faithfully 

 by present generations of birds. 



In discussing the decrease of various birds, a common reply is 

 "There are just as many birds as ever there were, but they go a 

 different way". Let us repeat that this is a real danger, calculated 

 to arrest progress in the work of preservation. Fortunately the 

 data for its overthrow is abundant. Yet a skilled hand is necessary 

 to place it before the public. 



The autumn meeting of the New England Federation of Nat- 

 ural History Societies was held at Fall River, Mass., Friday and 

 Saturday, September 23rd and 24th, at the usual meeting place 



