50 BIEDS OF EAST PENNSYLYAMA. 



Ord assured the writer that, during his excursions to the coast 

 with Wilson, the distinguished ornithologist, the Avocet, Stilt, and 

 other Waders which are becoming rare in our day, were then quite 

 plentiful; so that there is every reason to fear that, in the course 

 of a few years more, they also may disappear. In Chesapeake 

 Bay, the Winter resort of a great variety of wild fowl, birds, 

 although still numerous, are, through the same influences, becom- 

 ing every year less abundant; and unless the present reprehensible 

 and most destructive system of shooting — wholesale slaughter, it 

 may with propriety be called — be rigidly put down, the decrease 

 will, in all likelihood, become permanent, to the great regret of 

 every true-minded naturalist. We have but to look into the 

 history of some of the birds of the British Islands, as a warning 

 against the continuance of the destroying influences to which many 

 of those of our own country are now subjected. During the past 

 thirty years the Rapacious Birds of Great Britain have undergone 

 an amount of persecution so determined and systematic, that many 

 of the species have altogether disappeared; and as by the latest 

 records of the meetings of the British Association assembled at 

 Norwich, it would appear that even sea-fowl are now in danger of 

 extirpation, owing to the extraordinary demand for their plumes 

 and feathers for marketable pui-poses, it may not be out of place 

 for the ornithologists of this great continent to consider the pro- 

 priety of protecting, even now, some of the species thus proclaim- 

 ing by their scarcity, that the time may not be far distant when 

 we too may have to lament theii- loss. 



