186 i HIGHWAYS AOT) BYWAYS. 



The beautiful little incligO birds, looking like patches 

 of blue sky among the legves, are nearly gone. The 

 tanagers, with their tropical brilliancy, are almost 

 extinct. JSTever one escapes if seen by a collector. The 

 flickers, with golden win^ shafts and crowns of crimson, 

 are hunted hke outlaw/. The American gold finches, 

 so sprightly and musi/al, and formerly so plentiful in 

 every field and orch^'d, where they were at home in 

 trees or on pasture thistles, gems of jet and gold, are 

 now seen only occasionally. They were too pretty to 

 be allowed to live ii this wicked world. 



The blue birds lave had an equally hard fate. They 

 naturally seek th« haunts of men. They are confiding 

 creatures, and t(/b innocent to practice cunning, so they 

 easily fall a p)6y to those who go in search of them. 

 Last summer /I visited many familiar old pastures and 

 stumpy fieldg/in which formerly I could find dozens of 

 pairs nestii^ in May or June. In neither of these 

 localities v^s there one left. They had been hunted 

 until all v'ere killed. The rollicking bobolinks, immor- 

 talized 1^^ Irving, no longer thrill the school-boys in 

 countr}^ meadows. Their natural companions, the 

 clover blossoms and buttercups, annually appear, but 

 the g/ad, tuneful voices are hushed. The plumage of 

 thes^ birds was attractive, and their bodies delicate 

 mo/sels on the table — to these people "sweeter than 

 scTflg." The wee humming birds, whose diminutive 

 pYins should have secured them from harm, are noAV 

 )ftener seen on wearing apparel than on the flowers. 

 Their shining wings and ruby throats proved " their 



