10 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 



the birds, as most of them fly during the nights ; and if 

 these are dark, the hghthoiises always attract great 

 numbers, which perish by dashing against them. Some 

 mornings hundreds have been picked up under one of 

 these false beacons to the birds. The city lights also 

 allure thousands on dark and stormy nights. Many of 

 these strike against the high buildings or against the 

 net-work of Avires, now so generally distributed. But 

 the greatest danger, and the one for which all sensible 

 and humane people must blush, is the bloody gauntlet 

 these beautiful and innocent creatures have to pass, of 

 the thousands of heartless, greedy gunners who are on 

 the w^atch for their coming, and w^ho kill countless 

 scores of them which stop for rest or food or by stress 

 of weather. The danger is all the greater, as the spring 

 migrations mostly occur before the leaves are thick 

 enough to screen from sight, and the birds are in bright 

 plumage, the more attractive and tempting to the most 

 destructive classes, the collectors of specimens and the 

 gatherers of bird skins for decorative and millinery 

 purposes. Between these two classes of outlaws, 

 assisted by the army of worthless tramps who kill for 

 the fun of killing, the innocent birds are subjected to 

 persecutions unknown to other living creatures. The 

 last few years have been those of great peril and 

 destruction to them, and they are disappearing surely 

 ♦and more rapidly than the shy wild flowers over whose 

 loss the true botanist is so justly troubled. When we 

 realize the large number of men and boys whose sole 

 occupation is killing them, and when we see the hun- 



