78 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
In the course of the correspondence of the New York Zoolog- 
ical Society with hunters and collectors regarding a future supply 
of American mammals and birds with which to stock the Zoolog- 
ical Park, the extent of the disappearance of our vertebrate fauna, 
as a whole, has become painfully evident. It seems that the war 
of annihilation, now going on with great activity against all our 
wild creatures, indiscriminately, is far more universal and far 
more fatal in its effects than people are aware. 
In order either to verify or disprove what appeared to be the 
existing facts, and to discover possible remedies for existing evils, 
the Society resolved to make a brief but pointed inquiry into con- 
ditions affecting bird life as they exist to-day throughout the 
United States. 
The prime object of this inquiry, and the report on its results, 
is to call universal attention to the fact that the whole volume of 
bird and mammal life in the United States is decreasing at an 
alarming rate. To that object, the question as to what species are 
disappearing most rapidly, or most generally, is but a side issue. 
That is a branch of our subject which might be pursued indefin- 
itely, and it would be both easy and interesting to devote to it a 
great quantity of time and labor which might much better be ex- 
pended in the promotion of measures to arrest the universal 
slaughter. 
In seeking a method by which the extent of bird destruction 
—or preservation—might be reduced to figures and averages, it 
seemed entirely possible for any person who is specially inter- 
ested in birds, and who has lived for several years in a given 
locality, to make and furnish a general estimate as to the abun- 
dance of bird life about him to-day incomparison with what it was 
ten or fifteen years ago. Accordingly, the following questions 
were prepared, and addressed to persons competent to answer 
Pema 
1. Are birds decreasing in number in your locality ? 
2. About how many are there now in comparison with the 
number fifteen years ago? (one-half as many? one-third? one- 
fourth ?) 
3. What agency (or class of men) has been most destructive 
to the birds of your locality ? 
4, What important species of birds or quadrupeds are becom- 
ing extinct in your state? 
