80 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
rant the belief that unless much more radical and much more 
general protective measures are taken forthwith, the next fifteen 
years will witness the total annihilation within the United States - 
of practically all our birds except the warblers and sparrows, and 
all our wild quadrupeds save the rabbits and the small species that 
burrow in the earth. 
Whether this belief is warranted by existing facts, the reader 
will now have an opportunity to judge for himself. 
DESTRUCTIVE AGENCIES Now IN OPERATION.—In studying 
the reports now before us, the inquirer is bound to be impressed 
by the great variety of causes operating to bring about the anni- 
hilation of our birds and quadrupeds. With but very few ex- 
ceptions, wherever bird life or mammal life still exists, there will 
be found a full complement of destructive agencies, hard at 
work, trying to break down the barriers by which nature or the 
humane portion of mankind is endeavoring to save our fauna 
from destruction. Wherever living creatures are still striving to 
hold their own, in something like abundance, there are the de- 
stroyers most numerous, both inkind and in number. Wherever 
there are birds that can be considered edible, or classed as 
‘‘game,’’ there will you find the sportsman, the idler, the market- 
hunter, the farmer and the ‘‘game hog,’’ with dogs, or decoys, 
or baits of grain, and hired help of every kind available, afield 
early and late, eager to ‘‘kill something,’’ eager to make ‘‘a 
good bag.’’ Each class of destroyers is keenly anxious to kill 
all the birds before ‘‘ the other fellows’’ get a chance to do so. 
These five classes of gunners spread over the fields and forests of 
nearly the whole United States where edible birds make their 
homes and rear their young. 
If the reports before us are true, the boys of America are the 
chief destroyers of our passerine birds, and other small non-edi- 
ble birds generally. The majority of them shoot the birds, a 
great many devote their energies to gathering eggs, and some do 
both. Wherever there are herons who bear the fatal gift of 
‘‘plumes,’’ there will the plume-hunter be found, hard at work. 
Every now and then, the newspapers and sportsmen’s magazines 
record sickening details of the slaughter of gulls, terns, doves, or 
ducks ; of brutal ‘‘ side’? hunts ; of enormous catches of trout, 
bass or other game fishes. It is estimated that during last 
