10 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 
the birds, as most of them fly during the nights; and if 
these are dark, the lighthouses always attract great 
numbers, which perish by dashing against them. Some 
mornings hundreds have been picked up under one of 
these false beacons to the birds. The city lights also 
allure thousands on dark and stormy nights. Many of 
these strike against the high buildings or against the 
net-work of wires, now so generally distributed. But 
the greatest danger, and the one for which all sensible 
and humane people must blush, is the bloody gauntlet 
these beautiful and innocent creatures have to pass, of 
the thousands of heartless, greedy gunners who are on 
the watch for their coming, and who kill countless 
scores of them which stop for rest or food or by stress 
of weather. The danger is all the greater, as the spring 
migrations mostly occur before the leaves are thick 
enough to screen from sight, and the birds are in bright 
plumage, the more attractive and tempting to the most 
destructive classes, the collectors of specimens and the 
gatherers of bird skins for decorative and millinery 
purposes. Between these two classes of outlaws, 
assisted by the army of worthless tramps who kill for 
the fun of killing, the innocent birds are subjected to 
persecutions unknown to other living creatures. The 
last few years have been those of great peril and 
destruction to them, and they are disappearing surely 
and more rapidly than the shy wild flowers over whose 
loss the true botanist is so justly troubled. When we 
realize the large number of men and boys whose sole 
occupation is killing them, and when we see the hun- 
