304 An American Fruit-Farm 



As soon as he can, after landing, he buys a gun. 

 He wants to kill anything he can cook and eat, 

 and he makes no discrimination: robins, crows, 

 herons, blizzards, bluebirds, owls, woodpeckers, 

 humming-birds, orioles, ducks, — anything that 

 wears feathers! Never in history were the birds 

 in such peril of extinction, in America, as they are 

 to-day. The State of Pennsylvania has had a 

 terrible experience with alien bird-killers. Six 

 Pennsylvania game wardens have been killed 

 and more wounded by "alien pothunters, '* though 

 the law of the Commonwealth forbids an alien to 

 carry, or even to possess, a gtm. 



It is a misdemeanor for Antonio — ^unless he 

 becomes an American citizen, which he hastens to 

 do — ^to kill birds. Once he understands civiliza- 

 tion of the American type he makes a very good 

 citizen. But for centuries in Italy this indiscrimi- 

 nate bird-slaughter has gone on. About all the 

 birds seen in Italy are in flight across the coimtry. 

 Did you ever see a nest of birds, or of eggs any- 

 where in Italy? Antonio ate the eggs as soon as 

 they were laid ; then he ate the old birds. Do Amer- 

 icans want their song-birds consumed off the earth? 



''All very well," says Farmer Joe, ''but I don't 

 fool along about birds; when I want to shoot 'em 

 I shoot 'em; guess it's my land and they belong to 

 me. " But the birds do not belong to Farmer Joe; 

 they are creatures of the wild and no individual 

 can establish title to them. They no more belong 

 to Farmer Joe than does the wind that sweeps 



