16 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



The lists of species of birds and mammals that 

 already have been locally exterminated in the vari- 

 ous states of our country make in the aggregate an 

 appalling showing. We do not need to grieve over 

 the species that because of their size and habits 

 were foredoomed to disappear before the thick 

 settlements and fierce progress of civilization; but 

 we are unreconciled to the needless extinction of 

 species that could and would have survived had they 

 been conserved on a sensible basis, and that could 

 and would have yielded an annual increase of great 

 value to man. 



At this moment, in addition to the eleven species 

 of birds already totally exterminated on our con- 

 tinent, there are at least twenty-five others that are 

 prominent candidates for oblivion. Several of 

 these have already been mentioned. The groups 

 that are in greatest peril are the shore-birds (sixty 

 species) and the grouse. Fortunately, all of the 

 former save six species recently (October 1, 1913) 

 have come under the protection of the federal 

 migratory bird law. Unfortunately, however, none 

 of the members of the grouse family are so pro- 

 tected, and it is among them that serious fatalities 

 are impending. 



Prior to October 1, 1913, there was another phase 

 of bird destruction that gave the conservators of 

 wild life very great concern. It was the destruction 

 of insectivorous birds of many species by the 

 Italians of the North and the negroes of the South, 



