182 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 



song sparrows, thrushes, bhie birds and orioles. Some 

 mornings, in a distance of ten miles, I have seen eight 

 or ten of these marauders. A¥ith no warrant and no 

 assistance, one is powerless to redress the wrong. The 

 legislatures should pass a law prohibiting tlie carrying 

 of a gun on Sunday. Every person found prowling 

 around the country wdth guns, or other murderous 

 weapons, should be liable to arrest at sight, without 

 further process of law. Many students in ornithology 

 are exceedingly wasteful of life, often foolishly and 

 cruelly so. The rarer becomes a species the less the 

 chances that any will escape. Every ambitious col- 

 lector is anxious for a specimen, and is alert to obtain 

 it. It matters not that the species has been often 

 described, its structures and habits w^ell known — the 

 bird must pay with its life the penalty of being rare. 

 Bradford Torrey, who, without gun, has become so 

 familiar with ISTew England birds, heard in the White 

 Mountains the song of a thrush not supposed to belong 

 to that locality. On his return to Boston he published 

 the incident. It was doubted by an ambitious ornithol- 

 ogist, who, with gun in hand, set out for the locality. 

 He found the thrush as described, and witli it five or 

 six others, all of Avliich he shot, thus annihilating the 

 colony. It is almost as much as its life is worth for a 

 scarlet tanager, summer red bird, or a rose-breasted 

 grosbeak to show itself. A well-known taxidermist 

 has Idlled and put up several hundred rose-breasted 

 grosbeaks and indigo birds. Another ornithologist 

 says " he ought to know a certain shy warbler, as he 



