XXX INTRODUCTION. 
links, and a great number of other songsters take up from the ground every worm, 
grasshopper, bug, beetle, and caterpillar they are able to find. In April and May the 
orchards from the Gulf to the Northern Lakes swarm with beautifully colored Wood 
Warblers and Vireos. These birds are always looking for insects among the leaves and 
blossoms of the orchard trees, and their good service is inestimable. The Wood- 
peckers, Titmice, Nuthatches, and other birds are the guardians of our woods and forest 
lands. The farmer has no better ally in his struggle against the insect enemies in his 
meadows than the Bobolink, and the Red-winged and Yellow-headed Blackbird. These 
birds alone save incalculable sums each year and should be protected in every way. 
The old birds each day carry much more insects to their young than their own ‘weight 
consists of. 
BIRD ENEMIES. 
It is exceedingly disheartening to the friend of nature to see how merciless a war 
is waged in all parts of our country against the living ornaments of our landscapes, the 
birds. This is particularly the case near towns and villages, and especially near the 
large cities. In the vicinity of Milwaukee, Chicago, and St. Louis I have seen numbers 
of boys roaming around in the fields and forests on Saturdays and Sundays, engaged 
in shooting birds and robbing their eggs. In the South the lazy negroes are always 
ready to kill birds. Near Houston, Texas, I frequently met negroes in the woods who 
carried large strings of birds, consisting of Cardinals, Bluebirds, Fox-colored, White- 
throated, and White-crowned Sparrows, Blue Jays and many others. Near New Orleans, 
negroes as well as French Creoles and Italians (Dagos), combine in waging a shameless 
war against our birds. The booty of these robbers is usually found in the French 
market of that city. 
In order to give my readers a clear idea of the shameless war waged in all parts 
of the country against our birds, I quote from an excellent article of Dr. J. A. Allen, 
“The Present Wholesale Destruction of Bird-life in the United States.’ * 
“In the bird-world, as elsewhere, thegstruggle for existence, even under natural 
conditions, is a severe one, undue increase being held well in check. Birds, and their 
eggs and young, are not only the natural prey of many predaceous mammals and 
reptiles, but also of predaceous birds. Squirrels, spermophiles, and mice, although not 
in a strict sense rapacious, are among the worst natural enemies of the smaller birds, 
whose eggs and young they seek and devour with avidity; while many birds not usually 
classed as predatory, as the Jays, Crows, Grackles, Cuckoos, and some others, wage 
unremitted warfare upon the eggs and young of the weaker species. The elements are 
also far more destructive of bird-life than is commonly recognized. Late cold storms in 
spring destroy many of the early migrants, sometimes nearly exterminating certain 
species over considerable areas where they had become prematurely settled for the 
season. The unusual southward extension of severe cold waves and heavy snow-falls 
* Supplement to ‘Science, Feb, 26, 1886. No. 160. 
American Ornithologists’ Union, Bulletin No. 1 of the Committee on Protection of Birds, 
