BIRD ENEMIES 211 



in the majority of cases the motive is a mercenary 

 one ; the collector expects to sell these spoils of the 

 groves and orchards. Kobbing nests and killing 

 birds becomes a business with him. He goes about 

 it systematically, and becomes an expert in circum- 

 venting and slaying our songsters. Every town of 

 any considerable size is infested with one or more 

 of these bird highwaymen, and every nest in the 

 country round about that the wretches can lay hands 

 on is harried. Their professional term for a nest 

 of eggs is "a clutch," a word that well expresses 

 the work of their grasping, murderous lingers. 

 They clutch and destroy in the germ the life and 

 music of the woodlands. Certain of our natural 

 history journals are mainly organs of communica- 

 tion between these human weasels. They record 

 their exploits at nest-robbing and bird-slaying in 

 their columns. One collector tells with gusto how 

 he " worked his way " through an orchard, ransack- 

 ing every tree and leaving, as he believed, not one 

 nest behind him. He had better not be caught 

 working his way through my orchard. Another 

 gloats over the number of Connecticut warblers — 

 a rare bird — he killed in one season in Massachu- 

 setts. Another tells how a mockingbird appeared 

 in southern New England and was hunted down by 

 himself and friend, its eggs "clutched," and the 

 bird killed. Who knows how much the bird-lovers 

 of New England lost by that foul deed ! The pro- 

 geny of the birds would probably have returned to 

 Connecticut to breed, and their progeny, or a part 



