DANGER OF AN EARLY EXTINCTION OF SONG BIRDS. 187 



undoing." Where are the flocks of snow buntings that 

 used to give a touch of summer to the wintry fields ? 

 Where are tlie troops of beautiful cedar birds, of meadow 

 larks and purple finches that were a few years ago so 

 plentiful I 



Here are a few statistics gathered by the New York 

 Audubon Society: "We know one taxidermist that 

 handles thirty thousand bird skins in a year. A col- 

 lector in a three months' tri]3 brought back eleven 

 thousand. From one small district on Long Island, 

 seventy thousand were gathered in four months. Feb., 

 1886, a I^ew York house had on hand two hundred 

 thousand bird skins. Millions are sent abroad. A 

 London auction house sold of these 40-1,000 in a season." 

 These figures tell only in small part the shameful story. 

 Whittier, the kindliest of men, was constrained to write, 

 " I could almost wish that the shooters of the birds, the 

 taxidermists Avho prepare them, and the fashionable 

 wearers of their plumage, might share the penalty of 

 the Ancient Mariner who shot the Albatross." 



A few more years of such wanton warfare on these 

 unbought yet priceless blessings, a few more years of 

 crime against the " wise order of the world," and men 

 will walk the voiceless fields and woods, where instead 

 of bright wings amid the green foliage, and artistic 

 structures filled with eggs and fluttering birds, only 

 unsightly nests of crawling worms will dangle from 

 leafless bush and tree. In place of soothing, happy 

 bird voices, only the fretting hum of troublesome insects 

 will worry the listening ear. 



