180 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 



rapidly and just as surely as some of the hardier exotics 

 are crowding out many of the more deUcate wild 

 flowers. Our shy retiring song birds will not stay sur- 

 rounded by such a horde of noisy, scolding gamin : 

 besides, the sparrows occupy most of the nesting places 

 of such birds as the wrens, martins, blue birds, etc. — 

 only a limited number of birds will occupy a given area 

 in the nesting season. 



A denser population and a rapid disappearance of the 

 forests have had their influence in diminishing the 

 number of the sylvias, especially those of bright plum- 

 age whose safety depends largety on secure hiding 

 places. 



The dangers attending the spring and fall migrations 

 are rapidly multiplying. The countries over which the 

 birds pass are becoming gauntlets of destruction. The 

 colored population and the "poor whites" of the south, 

 now quite generally provided with fire-arms, kill vast 

 numbers of robins, golden-winged woodpeckers, larks 

 and bobolinks for food. The accounts from some of 

 the localities are most distressing. A paper in Virginia 

 noted last fall the fact that trappers with nets were hav- 

 ing great success catching the fat robins that stopped to 

 feed : that some experts caught three and four thousand 

 a day. In the swamp during a fall of snow other "pot 

 hunters " were each shooting several hundred a week. 

 At certain seasons the markets of the border States 

 are more plentifully supplied with small birds than 

 Avith any other products. 'No wonder that each suc- 

 ceeding spring brings back fewer of our friends. 



