CLASS AVES 627 



Birds are in some localities persecuted to a considerable extent 

 for their eggs, which are used as food. This is true of certain 

 gulls, terns, herons, murres, and ducks. Egging is not carried 

 on now as much as formerly, since many of the colonies have 

 been driven away from their breeding places, or the government 

 has prohibited the practice. In 1854 more than five hundred 

 thousand murres' eggs were collected on the Farallone Islands 

 and sold in the markets of San Francisco in two months. 



The game-birds have been and still are in certain localities a 

 common article of food. Most of them, however, have been so 

 persistently hunted by sportsmen and market men that they 

 are now of no great commercial importance. Several species, 

 like the wood-duck and heath-hen, have been brought to the verge 

 of extinction. The repeating shotgun, introduction of cold- 

 storage methods, and easy transportation facilities soon depleted 

 the vast flocks of prairie-chickens and other game-birds of the 

 Middle West. One New York dealer in 1864 received twenty 

 tons of these birds in one consignment. The hunting and trans- 

 portation of game-birds is now regulated by law in most localities. 



The use of birds' skins and feathers as ornaments has been for 

 many years a source of income for many hunters, middlemen, and 

 milliners. Laws and public sentiment are slowly overcoming 

 the barbarous custom of killing birds for their plumes, and it is 

 hoped that the women of the country will soon cease to demand 

 hats trimmed with the remains of birds. 



The Value of Birds as Destroyers of Injurious Animals. — 

 Within the past two decades detailed investigations have been 

 carried on by the United States Department of Agriculture, state 

 governments, and private parties in order to learn the relations 

 of birds to man with regard to the destruction of injurious ani- 

 mals. The results of these researches may be found in govern- 

 ment publications or in books such as Weed and Dearborn's 

 Birds in their Relation to Man, and Forbush's Useful Birds and 

 their Protection. 



A very large proportion of the food of birds consists of insects. 



