STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 255 



birds, but not so many as some imagine, for the little fellows 

 are too sharp to be easily captured. Wild cats, foxes, 

 skunks and other carnivorous animals come in for their 

 share when they can get it, but mice, rats and other small 

 mammals are so much easier captured that they do not mo- 

 lest the birds much. Domestic cats also kill great numbers 

 of them. In our cold country the severe winters freeze and 

 starve out many beneficial birds. The destruction of the for- 

 ests drives a great many away, for they will not stay where 

 there is no natural protection. These are some of the causes 

 of the diminution of our feathered comjpanions. But the 

 great cause, and the only one that needs looking after, is man, 

 who should be their best friend, for without birds successful 

 fruit culture is impossible. Boys are allowed to go about rob- 

 bing nests, with no other motive than morbid cruelty and de- 

 generate cussedness. Xo doubt it would be a benefit to rob the 

 nests of some birds, but notice that those are the very ones that 

 are untouched, as such birds generally build in some inaccessi- 

 ble place. It is the innocent and beneficial birds that suffer 

 most from the depredations of these juvenile hunters. Oologists 

 also destroy great number of eggs. This evil is not so great, how- 

 ever, as the above mentioned one, as the indefatigable curiosity 

 hunter takes the bad as well as the good, and no doubt in a 

 majority of cases where nests are robbed the birds rebuild in 

 some other locality. This, however, is no reasonable excuse for 

 promiscuous plundering . 



Great numbers of birds, both good and bad, are killed by 

 taxidermists for stuffing. This is admissible only when the 

 motive is the advancement of the cause of science. But when 

 the specimens are used only as home adornments it is wrong, and 

 should be prohibited by law. But a greater evil than any of these 

 is the killing of game birds for food and sport, as some call it, 

 but just where the sport comes in I have never been able to 

 discover. The man who can look with pleasure on the death 

 agonies of an innocent creature, knowing that his own hand 

 has snai)j)ed the brittle thread of life, must be hard-hearted 

 indeed. As far as sport is concerned, it is as good a test of 

 marksmanship to shoot at a hunting dog as at an innocent bird, , 

 and the flesh of the retriever would be about as fit for food as a 

 mutilated bird. We would not relish beef that had been torn 

 in pieces by a cannon loaded with grapeshot; our poultry must 

 be killed in the most approved way, and all animal food must be 



