BIRD ENEMIES. 19 



to those thus cut off, and that it is this extra or ar- 

 tificial destruction that disturbs the balance of nature. 

 The operation of natural causes keeps the birds in 

 check, but the greed of the collectors and milliners 

 tends to their extinction. 



I can pardon a man who wishes to make a collec- 

 tion of eggs and birds for his own private use, if he 

 will content himself with one or two specimens of a 

 kind, though he will find any collection much less 

 satisfactory and less valuable than he imagines, but 

 the professional nest-robber and skin collector should 

 be put down, either by legislation or with dogs and 

 shot-guns. 



I have remarked above thai there is probably very 

 little truth in the popular notion that snakes can 

 "charm " birds. But two of my correspondents have 

 each furnished me with an incident from his own ex- 

 perience, which seems to confirm the popular belief. 

 One of them writes from Georgia as follows : — 



"Some twenty-eight years ago I was in Calaveras 

 County, California, engaged in cutting lumber. One 

 day in coming out of the camp or cabin, my attention 

 was attracted to the curious action of a quail in the 

 air, which, instead of flying low and straight ahead as 

 usual, was some fifty feet high, flying in a circle, and 

 uttering cries of distress. I watched the bird and 

 saw it gradually descend, and following with my eye 

 in a line from the bird to the ground saw a large 

 snake with head erect and some ten or twelve inches 

 above the ground, and mouth wide open, and as far 

 as I could see, gazing intently on the quail (I was 

 about thirty feet from the snake). The quail gradu- 

 ally descended, its circles growing smaller and smaller 

 and all the time uttering cries of distress, until its feet 



