No. 4.] DECREASE OF BIKDS. 483 



pean invasion, their numbers must soon diminish, as has 

 already happened in some parts of Italy and other Mediter- 

 ranean countries. 



Soys with Guns. Boys with guns are about as destruc- 

 tive to small birds as foreigners. The "air rifles" and 

 other guns, given as premiums by boys' papers, soap manu- 

 facturers and others, slay their thousands. Dwight Whiting 

 wrote some years since, in "The Country Gentleman," that 

 one boy's record for his air rifle was four hundred and sev- 

 enty song birds. Several of his companions had done better 

 than this. They had no use for the birds, and were only 

 shooting for a record. The numerous advertisements of 

 boys' guns show that they meet with a ready and profitable 

 sale. When a boy is out with a gun looking for legitimate 

 game, and does not find it, he will shoot something else ; 

 and so long as boys are allowed to carry loaded guns, the 

 small birds are sure to suffer. Very few boys know the 

 game laws. Most of this shooting is illegal, and the boys 

 should be arrested. Miss Juliet Porter writes from Worces- 

 ter that boys there are shooting English sparrows and other 

 native sparrows, confounding one with the other. Such 

 mistakes will always be made if boys are allowed to carry 

 guns of any kind. 



Milliners' Hunters and Taxidermists. Those who write 

 of milliners' hunters destroying birds seem to refer mainly 

 to the past, as the demand for the plumage of native birds 

 does not now warrant people in taking the risks incurred by 

 breaking the laws to obtain them. This was once a very 

 serious evil in the case of the gulls and terns, and from 

 1870 to 1880 it was a menace to such birds as orioles, tan- 

 agers and bluebirds ; but shooting of small birds for this 

 purpose probably never became general enough in Massa- 

 chusetts to do very serious harm. My correspondence on 

 this subject indicates that very few men are now hunting in 

 this State to supply milliners. 



Complaints are made that naturalists or taxidermists shoot 

 the rarer birds. No doubt this is true, but it is usually ille- 

 gal, as very few persons now have permits for scientific col- 

 lecting. Whenever such conspicuous birds as the cardinal 



