166 BIRD FRIENDS 



start out to kill English sparrows, but are not able 

 to distinguish the different kinds of sparrows and 

 so kill valuable native sparrows. 



Shooting of song-birds by foreigners. In Italy any 

 kind of song-bird is considered legitimate game, and 

 when the Italians first come to this country they 

 often begin to hunt our small song-birds. Mr. C. A. 

 Johnson, of Hoosick Falls, New York, reports that 

 two Italians recently confessed in court that they 

 had boiled alive and then eaten young robins and 

 nickers which they had taken from their nests. 

 Wherever there are large construction works of 

 railroads, aqueducts, etc., for which large numbers 

 of Italians are employed, Sunday is apt to be a 

 day of bird-slaughter. In Pennsylvania, six game- 

 wardens were killed and eight or ten wounded while 

 enforcing the law against foreigners. 



Slaughter of robins in the South. In the South 

 the song-birds are not so well protected as in the 

 North, and many of them are shot for food. Robins 

 were formerly killed in enormous numbers for this 

 purpose. The robins roost together in large num- 

 bers and are easily killed at night by means of 

 torches, clubs, and poles. 



One small hamlet in the South sent 120,000 robins 

 to market, where they were sold at five cents per 

 dozen. In one section of Louisiana, where the robins 

 came in the winter to feed on the holly berries, 

 about ten thousand birds were slain daily as long 



