A CONSERVATION SKETCH 287 



and in America, until a stop was put to it about 

 ten years ago, millions of dollars ' worth of water- 

 fowl and upland birds were sold every autumn 

 and winter. For instance, less than fifty years 

 ago, before the passenger pigeons becamre extinct, 

 a single town in Michigan in two years- shipped 

 birds to the value of $4,000,000. 



We have also attempted to outline the history 

 of the destruction that followed in the wake of 

 "civilization": how, through lack of knowledge 

 and foresight, man depleted the ranks of the hawk 

 and owl families; how his "feather" voyages 

 created havoc among the down-bearing ducks of 

 Labrador; how he carelessly wrecked the guano 

 rookeries of Peru ; how he exterminated birds- for 

 their plumes, only learning, when the ostrich was 

 on the very verge of extinction, how to domesticate 

 it ; and, finally, how gyeat avian populations have 

 been wiped from the face of the earth because 

 their flesh was tender and palatable, and easy to 

 obtain. It has been a sad story indeed — one of 

 which we have no right to feel proud. 



Nothing could be sorrier than the picture of 

 Italy stripped of its birds, unless it be America, 

 the greatest natural bird paradise in the world, as 

 it once approached that deserted state. Since the 

 inception of Ealeigh's colony in Virginia and the 

 arrival of the Mayflower at Plymouth, there has 

 followed the total extinction of no less than six of 

 our native species : the great auk, Eskimo curlew, 



