120 THE HUMAN SIDE OF BIRDS 



the great auk has been completed, and nowhere in 

 the regions that once knew him and thousands of 

 his fellows is there even a lone survivor seen. 



Road-making has had diflFerent effects upon dif- 

 ferent species of birds that have followed the prac- 

 tice. In some instances it has probably been the 

 direct cause of their extinction, since in time they 

 entirely lost control of their wings, and fell help- 

 less prey to flesh-eating animals and birds. Those 

 that depended altogether upon their own laid-out 

 routes upon the ground, and thus scorned the air, 

 or avoided flying because of the effort involved, 

 have suffered to the utmost of their capacity for 

 their lack of judgment or laziness, whichever it 

 might have been. They have paid the extreme pen- 

 alty that nature exacts from those of her children 

 that try to change or modify her laws. 



But those birds, like the wild turkeys of North 

 America, that employ road-building only for pur- 

 poses of self-protection and caution against the 

 dangers that threaten their little ones have profited 

 by their labours, and so thrive in the face of all 

 efforts to exterminate them. For the wild turkeys 

 do not become too dependent upon the ground; 

 they do not forget how to fly, and flight is always a 

 resort quickly sought in time of extreme danger. 

 The ground has its uses to them and so has the air, 



