THE CONSERVATION OF BIRDS. 257 



they could stand the weather, but hunger and cold combined 

 they could not endure. 



Young birds are subject to many dangers before reaching 

 maturity. Foxes, cats, skunks, minks, weasels, squirrels, 

 hawks, owls, crows, jays, and snakes are always seeking to 

 devour them. The percentage of young birds preyed upon 

 by predaceous animals is certainly quite large. Heavy rains 

 destroy many more. Adult birds also fall victims to preda- 

 ceous animals, particularly hawks and owls, though less often 

 than the young. 



Light-houses, situated as they are in a main thoroughfare of 

 migration, cause the death of many birds. Most birds fly by 

 night, and, coming into a beam of light, they follow it to their 

 destruction. Telegraph and telephone wires are another dan- 

 ger. Fortunately, many birds that hit them are not killed, 

 so they are able to profit by experience. A western writer 

 has noted that in a certain locality the number killed during 

 the first few years after the wires were put up was much 

 larger than the number killed in later years. 



But besides these natural causes and the inevitable results 

 of the white man's occupation of the American continent, 

 certain causes have been, and still are, at work which tend 

 greatly to decrease the number of birds possible under exist- 

 ing conditions. To a large extent these agencies are the result 

 of human greed, cruelty, and ignorance, and the havoc they 

 commit may be avoided by proper laws based upon and sup- 

 ported by the opinion of an enlightened public. 



Perhaps one of the most constant and serious of these 

 agencies is the egg-collecting or nest-destroying small boy. 

 In almost every town or village there may be found a dozen 

 or more youths who have frequent attacks of the collecting 

 fever. Unfortunately, the fever is often of the intermittent type, 

 and the season's collections are allowed to go to ruin before 

 the advent of another spring. Every nook and cranny for 

 miles around the head-quarters of such a coterie is examined 

 17 



