VALUABLE WILD LIFE 23 



entire, and the larger species were used piecemeal. 

 The slaughter for millinery purposes called forth, 

 as the special champion of birds, the Audubon 

 Societies, state and national. Their first work con- 

 sisted in prohibiting the use of song-birds, and in 

 stopping the killing of gulls and terns. The Audu- 

 bon people stepped in at a time when a furious and 

 bloody general slaughter of our gulls and terns 

 was in progress, and they literally brought back to 

 us those interesting and pleasing species. But for 

 their efforts, there would to-day be only the merest 

 trace of the long-winged swimmers along our 

 Atlantic coast. 



In the South, no power proved sufficient to save 

 the unfortunate egrets and herons, the ibises, spoon- 

 bills and flamingo. The flamingo is totally extinct 

 throughout the United States, and of the other 

 species, nothing more than sample specimens re- 

 main. Of the white egrets, there are about twenty 

 small colonies, each one protected from the rapa- 

 cious plume-hunters by Audubon Society wardens 

 or by the national government. 



But the destroyers of wild life have not been per- 

 mitted to have everything their own way. To-day 

 their progress is contested by an army of defenders, 

 which, in the greatest battles that have been fought 

 in our country, have been completely victorious. 

 Enough victories have been won to demonstrate the 

 fact that it is possible to save the remnant of wild 

 life, and increase it. 



