The extermination of America's Bird Fauna. 



By 

 R. W. Shufeldt. 



(With PI. I— 111.) 



E, 



/ver since man became the dominant type in the animal 

 world on this planet, he has, with bnt a few excepted instances, 

 been the arch enemy and destroyer of all the other groups of 

 vertebrates, and of not a few of the inveitebrates. He has, as 

 a matter of fact, spared only those which could be utilized by 

 him for his support, welfare or pleasure; and without exception, 

 these have only been saved by depriving them of their liberty 

 and reducing them to a state of domestication. Rarely has this 

 been otherwise, as in the case of the animals partially protected 

 in the Yellowstone National Park and elsewhere. 



In a brief article like the present one, it would be out of 

 the question to take up the matter of the extermination of all 

 kinds of animals in all parts of the world; for quite a volume 

 would be required to do such a broad subject full justice. The 

 general statement made above, however, covei's the entire matter; 

 and in principle, there is no difference between the extermina- 

 tion of buffaloes or lobsters, than there is between what happens 

 in the same way to prairie chickens or fur seals. With greater 

 or less rapidity, such kinds of animals all have the same history, 

 — they pass through all the wellknown stages of extermination, 

 from miUions to minus; and man, in the main, is invariably the 



Nyt Mag. f. Naturv. LII. I. 1914. 1 



