180 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 
rapidly and just as surely as some of the hardier exotics 
are crowding out many of the more delicate wild 
flowers. Our shy retiring song birds will not stay sur- 
rounded by such a horde of noisy, scolding gamin: 
besides, the sparrows occupy most of the nesting places 
of such birds as the wrens, martins, blue birds, etc.— 
only a limited number of birds will occupy a given area 
in the nesting season. 
A denser population and a rapid disappearance of the 
forests have had their influence in diminishing the 
number of the sylvias, especially those of bright plum- 
age whose safety depends largely on secure hiding 
places. 
The dangers attending the spring and fall migrations 
are rapidly multiplying. The countries over which the 
birds pass are becoming gauntlets of destruction. The 
colored population and the “poor whites” of the south, 
now quite generally provided with fire-arms, kill vast 
numbers of robins, golden-winged woodpeckers, larks 
and bobolinks for food. The accounts from some of 
the localities are most distressing. A paper in Virginia 
noted last fall the fact that trappers with nets were hav- 
ing great success catching the fat robins that stopped to 
feed: that,some experts caught three and four thousand 
a day. In the swamp during a fall of snow other “pot 
hunters” were each shooting several hundred a week. 
At certain seasons the markets of the border States 
are more plentifully supplied with small birds than 
with any other products. No wonder that each suc- 
ceeding spring brings back fewer of our friends. 
