356 USEFUL BIRDS. 
THE DESTRUCTION OF BIRDS BY MAN. 
Man is responsible for the extinction of species or for 
their disappearance from great tracts of country. He cuts 
down the forest and drives out the larger wood birds. He 
destroys the birds that injure his crops or flocks. He intro- 
duces animals which destroy birds, and he shoots birds for 
food, money, or sport. It is only since civilized man reached 
this country that the Great Auk has become extinct, and that 
the Passenger Pigeon, which roamed in countless millions 
over a continent, has been swept away. It is since then that 
the Prairie Chicken, once found in the east, and so plentiful 
in Kentucky that it was considered fit food for slaves and 
swine only, has been pushed toward the far west. The wild 
Turkey has been nearly driven out of the Atlantic States by 
man. The White Egret and the Carolina Parrot have almost 
disappeared. The Bartramian Sandpiper or Upland Plover, 
the Wood Duck, and the Woodcock must follow if not fully 
protected. Man exterminates birds for money, little recking 
that he is killing the “goose that lays the golden egg.” 
The greatest enemies of game birds, and, therefore, the 
greatest factors in their extermination, are the epicures, — 
the people who buy birds to eat. The marketmen merely 
supply the existing demand. The call for game birds has 
been so insistent and the price paid for them so remunerative 
that marketmen have often organized to defeat legislation for 
the protection of game. Observing people who have fre- 
quented the markets have read from the butcher’s stall the 
story of the decrease of game birds. Within thirty years, 
tons of Passenger Pigeons have stood in barrels in the Bus- 
ton market, and men now living can remember when the east- 
ern markets were glutted with Quail and Prairie Chickens. 
The war of extermination waged on game birds is a blot on 
the history of American civilization. It is paralleled only 
by the destruction of birds for millinery purposes, which has 
some shockingly cruel aspects. 
Here again the dealers — the milliners — are not so much 
to blame as the public, for the former cater to the wants 
of women only as fashion dictates. In civilization we still 
