mbere tbe jflDocmng«=l)trC) Sings 



supplies museums, private collections, and 

 milliners' shops. He is a bad fellow; he 

 kills for money. Still, his slaughterings, 

 numerous as they certainly are, look 

 insignificant when compared with the 

 enormous decrease of bird-life. 



The reports once in a while made out 

 by zoological societies and other organiza- 

 tions in the interest of natural-history study 

 are valuable in a way ; but one cannot 

 read them without smelling book-dust 

 where the pure air of outdoors ought to 

 be, and feeling that they are based upon 

 scattered and somewhat unreliable de- 

 tails, rather than upon the larger and more 

 generally influential facts of nature and life. 

 This is especially true as regards what 

 has been done in the matter of accounting 

 for the remarkable disappearance of birds 

 from large districts in their natural do- 

 main. The gun-bearer, the feather-hunter, 

 and the murderous small boy with the 

 sling are not the main agent of bird de- 

 struction, and I wish to give a few items of 

 evidence in this connection. 



Game laws for the protection of deer 

 76 



