No. 4.] DECREASE OF BIRDS. 531 



ing the attention of the national government and many of 

 the State governments. A protected natural park provides 

 an asylum in which birds can find security from their greatest 

 enemy, man. Here they can find breeding grounds where 

 they will be comparatively unmolested, when, elsewhere, 

 destruction awaits them at every hand. New York State, 

 with her great Adirondack Reservation, has recently estab- 

 lished another in the Catskills. Massachusetts already has 

 several reservations of small area. These might be increased 

 in number, and larger tracts of wild land taken. Men of 

 wealth should follow the example of Mr. Corbin, in New 

 Hampshire, and buy up tracts of hill land for the preserva- 

 tion of the forests and the game. In such preserves no 

 shooting of game or birds should be allowed. If birds 

 were protected also against their natural enemies in many 

 preserves of this kind, the supply would be constantly 

 renewed. One or more reservations might be established 

 on our coast for the benefit of water-fowl and shore birds. 

 Parts of Nantucket, Chatham, Monomoy, Wellfleet or other 

 places on Cape Cod, the Ipswich marshes, or some similar 

 resorts of water-fowl and wading birds, might be secured 

 in time to perpetuate the natural features of these bird 

 resorts, and afford the fowl safe feeding ground, upon 

 which they could remain undisturbed indefinitely. "We 

 have thus far secured only a few of the beaches near Bos- 

 ton, and these are so frequented by people that most of the 

 birds are driven off; still, a few shore birds may now be 

 seen occasionally along Nahant Neck. 



Protection for the Smaller Species that are diminishing. 

 That portion of the Massachusetts statutes which applies to 

 the smaller birds is very nearly perfect ; they are nearly all 

 protected at all times. The unprotected species hardly de- 

 serve protection. If the law can be properly enforced, the 

 birds are safe except as they may be interfered with by the 

 changes which take place around the centres of population. 

 The erection of buildings, the laying out of streets, the cut- 

 ting of trees and shrubbery, the draining of meadows and 

 similar ' improvements," the building of trolley roads and 

 telegraph lines, all inimical to bird-life, cannot be helped. 



