20 BIRDS 



the loungers about the market-place, gorging upon the 

 refuse thrown about for the only street cleaners in sight. 

 Where robins, woodpeckers, and many species of small 

 song-birds are so lightly regarded as to be killed in shock- 

 ing quantities and not always for food, the vultures are 

 carefully protected by the Southern people, who, not yet 

 realizing the greater value of insectivorous birds to the 

 farmer, do nevertheless know enough to throw the arm of 

 the law around their feathered scavengers. 



As if enough services that birds render us had not al- 

 ready been enumerated in this list — which is merely sug- 

 gestive and very far indeed from being complete — ^the 

 birds that rid our beaches of putrefying rubbish must not 

 be forgotten. While several sea and beach birds share 

 this task, it is to the gulls that we are chiefly indebted. 

 In the wake of garbage scows that put out to deep water 

 from the harbors of the seacoast and Great Lakes where 

 our large cities are situated, and following the ocean liners 

 for the food thrown overboard from the ships' galleys; 

 or resting in the estuaries of the larger rivers where the 

 refuse floats down toward the tide, flocks of strong- 

 winged gulls may be seen hovering about with an eye in- 

 tently fastened on every floating spieck. Enormous 

 feeders, gulls and terns cleanse the waters as vultures do 

 the land. Millions of these graceful birds that enliven 

 the dullest marine picture have been sacrificed for no 

 more worthy end than to rest entire or in mutilated sec- 

 tions on women's hats! But now that the people begin 

 to understand what birds do for us, a happier day is dawn- 

 ing for them all. 



