1112 



A PLEA FOR THE BIRDS. 



birds. We have laws for the protection of fish and deer, plovers and 

 quails, and for nesting birds ; I think there ought also to be a law 

 for the protection of birds of plumage. Some twenty-five or thirty 

 years ago there were introduced into Staten Island or the eastern 

 end of Long Island, hundreds of pages of the European skylarks 

 They were let out in the spring, they took kindly to our climate, 

 they nested and bred, and one could go down the Island a little 

 way and really hear that most sonorous chant of the skylark as- 

 cending, and it looked as though, at last,; we h a d introduced a new 

 bird, and one most delightful. But the German pot-hunters on 

 Sunday took their little nasty guns and went out, and in less than 

 two years they had shot them all away ; for they are one of the 

 most easy of birds to be shot, and we are without them almost en~ 

 tirely." 



, Fie. 1535.— Short-tailed Ant-thrush. 



Devours dead animal substances, and prevents increase of maggots. 



A leading' journal of New York City, the Sun, recently had the 

 following array of facts on this subject :— 



"A single local taxidermist handles 30,000 bird-skins in one 

 year ; 11,000 skins were brought back from a three months' trip by 

 a single collector ; from one small district on Long Island, about 

 70,000 birds were brought to New York in four months' time. In 

 New York, one firm had on hand, Feb. 1, 1886, 200,000 skins. But 

 the supply is not limited by domestic consumption. American 



