Mberc tbe /iDocftfngsbfrb Sings 



house cats, prowling from field to field 

 and from orchard to orchard, devour 

 every fledgling that they can find. By 

 night the owls hunt with the cats. The 

 farmer's pigs, nosing everywhere, eat up 

 the eggs of all birds that nest on the 

 ground. 



It is true that the plume-gatherers have 

 killed thousands of herons; but the 

 farmer's drains — the canals and covered 

 ditches whereby vast areas of watery 

 feeding-grounds have been made dry — 

 have killed millions. Fifty years ago the 

 sloppy prairies and queachy bog-lands of 

 Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio 

 were the haunts of countless swarms of 

 migrating herons, geese, brant, duck, and 

 crane ; now very few are seen, because 

 this intermediate resting- and feeding- 

 ground has been unavailable for years. 

 Even the small herons and bitterns, never 

 much shot, are becoming scarce for the 

 same reason. Hundreds of small streams 

 once in their feeding- and breeding-places 

 are now dry as a bone. Not long ago I 

 visited a spot where formerly the wood- 

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