â R. W. shüfeldt. 



agent responsible for their total extinction in the outcome. Per- 

 sonally I believe — and we have not a little evidence on the 

 point — that this was likewise the case in prehistoric times. 

 After man became the dominant type on the globe, and far 

 enough along to be able to make and use crude weapons of 

 offence, he exterminated, in time, many kinds of animals which 

 in prehistoric time roamed over tlie Earth in various regions. 



We cannot, however, enter upon such a discussion here; 

 and, as a matter of fact, I propose to limit myself to what is 

 now going on in the case of birds all over the world in this 

 matter of their extermination; to what has led up to it, and, 

 finally, if there be any cure for it. 



When, in geologic time, the Class Birds became more or 

 less differentiated from their reptilian ancestors, they were of 

 various sizes and of many kinds. There were aquatic as well 

 as terrestrial species, and nearly all — if not all of them — 

 still exhibited in their structure evidentiary characters of whence 

 they arose. Some were immense ostrich types; some possessed 

 true teeth; some flew, and some were flightless; some doubtless 

 fed upon what the vegetable world afforded and upon certain invert- 

 ebrates; while others lived solely upon fish or preyed upon many 

 of the land animals, including their own kind. Those that were 

 adapted to their environments flourished and represented the stock 

 from which the modern forms are derived. Others, less plastic 

 and in no way in harmony with the then life on the globe and 

 their surroundings, perished, and left no descendants. Of the 

 last, thousands upon thousands of species, genera, indeed entire 

 orders, thus died out, leaving not a trace nor a hint as to what 

 they were like or what their habits may have been. In short, 

 the fossil remains of birds stand as the rarest of any among 

 all the Vertebrata which existed during the various geological 

 eras. Certain it is, however, that, as time passed on, the big 

 and cumbersome types of reptilian birds gradually — or perhaps, 



