DANGER OF AN EARLY EXTINCTION OF SONG BIRDS. 185 
to kill and skin our native birds. To make a living, 
each of these persons must kill at least fifty per day, 
allowing for the large number spoiled and unmerchant- 
able. Not only this, but scores of bushwhackers on 
“their own hook” desultorily pursue this calling as they 
have time and opportunity, disposing of their spoils 
on “the sly.” If you would see the results, visit some 
of the large establishments where this kind of goods is 
sold to smaller dealers, and inquire as a purchaser. 
Some of them handle hundreds of thousands in a 
season. Then go the rounds of the retail fancy stores 
and millinery shops in any large city. In each may be 
seen hundreds in stock. It is the same in all country 
villages. Who has not been disgusted and saddened in 
looking through the fancy shops at Niagara Falls, to 
see the havoc that has been made with the songsters, 
to give this display of bright feathers, mounted on 
fans ungainly perched in cases, lying in hundreds on 
shelves, and packed in boxes; tanagers, blue birds, 
cedar birds, orioles, humming birds and gold finches, 
more of these skeletons in this one village than can be 
found alive in two entire-counties. Here, too, men are 
regularly employed to supply these establishments. 
Attention need not be called to the individual uses of 
these decorations. You can see them on the hats of 
rich and poor, old and young; a whole bird on one, a 
half dozen wings on another, beaks and breasts on 
others; hateful emblems of vanity and thoughtless 
cruelty, most unbecoming to our fair women and sweet- 
faced girls. 
