158 Canadian Record of Science. 



greed for slaughter, — in part by 'pot hunting' on a grand 

 scale, in part for the mere desire to kill something, — the 

 so-called 'love of sport.' The fate of extermination, which, 

 to the shame of our country, has already practically over- 

 taken the bison, and will sooner or later prove the fate of 

 all of our larger game-mammals and not a few of our game- 

 birds, will, if a halt be not speedily called by enlightened 

 jDublic opinion, overtake scores of our song-birds, and the 

 majority of our graceful and harmless, if somewhat less 

 'beneficial,' sea and shore birds. 



"The decrease in our song and shore birds is already 

 attracting attention ; and the protest against it, which 

 reaches us from many and widely distant parts of the country, 

 is not only painful evidence of this decrease, but gives hope 

 that the wave of destruction, which of late years has moved 

 on in ever-increasing volume, has at last reached its limit 

 of extension, and that its recession will be rapid and per- 

 manent. But to secure this result, the friends of the birds— 

 the public at large — must be thoroughly aroused as to the 

 magnitude of the evil, and enlightened as to its causes and 

 the means for its retrenchment." 



The American Ornithologists' Union, through its Com- 

 mittee on Protection of Birds, "has caused the publication of 

 a series of papers to throw some light upon the extent, the 

 purposes, and the methods of the present wholesale slaughter 

 of native birds. Birds are killed for food, for sport, for na- 

 tural history specimens, to stuff as objects of curiosity or 

 ornament, and for personal decoration. The birds killed for 

 food are, of course, mainly the commonly so-called game- 

 birds, — pigeons, grouse of various kinds, ducks and geese, 

 and the great horde of smaller waders, known as 'peeps,' 

 snipes, plovers, rails, etc. The slaughter of these has been 

 so improvident, and their decrease of late so marked, that 

 they are now more or less cared for by the numerous game- 

 protective associations, but are still, in the main, very ina- 

 dequately guarded. In addition to the birds commonly 

 recognized as game-birds, many song-birds are hunted for 

 food, notably the reed-bird, or bobolink, the robin, the 

 meadow-lark, the blackbird, and the flicker, and, in some 



