358 USEFUL BIRDS. 



among the sea birds along the Atlantic coasts. The birds 

 were shot down on their breeding grounds and their wings 

 cut off. Many human lives have been lost by reason of 

 this nefarious business. In 1905 a warden employed by the 

 National Association of Audubon Societies to protect the 

 birds was murdered by plume hunters. The reader may be 

 spared further details of this barbarous trade. 



The number of birds killed in the United States each year 

 before the business was checked by law and public sentiment 

 cannot be even estimated, but some figures can be given. 

 A single local taxidermist handled thirty thousand bird skins 

 in one year. A collector brought back eleven thousand 

 skins from a three months' trip. About seventy thousand 

 bird skins were sent to New York from a small district on 

 Long Island in about four months. American bird skins 

 were shipped to London and Paris. We may judge of the 

 demand there for birds from the fact that from one auction 

 room in London there were sold in three months over four 

 hundred thousand bird skins from America and over three 

 hundred and fifty thousand from India. One New York 

 firm had a contract to supply forty thousand skins to a 

 Paris firm. 



In Massachusetts this trade bore most heavily upon the 

 Gulls and Terns, which were driven out from many breeding 

 places along the coast. From 1870 to 1890 this business 

 was at its height in this country; and, as the market in 

 Europe is still brisk, no doubt some birds are still killed 

 here for millinery purposes, and some are still \vorn here, 

 despite the laws which prohibit any one from killing native 

 birds or selling or wearing their feathers. 



The danger to birds multiplies with the increase of popu- 

 lation. Gunners and sportsmen shoot birds mainly to sup- 

 ply the markets or for recreation ; but many persons shoot 

 birds, large or small, merely for sport or practice. There 

 is a class of foreigners who shoot small birds for sport, 

 and eat them. These people go out in squads, and each 

 man shoots at every bird within range, whether sitting or 

 flying. The Italians are tremendously destructive to bird 

 life. In southern Europe the larger birds are now so scarce 



