INTRODUCTION. II 
or are nearly extinct. To some extent this is un- 
avoidable. The general deforesting of the country, 
and consequent complete change of the face of vast 
areas, has deprived many birds of such localities as 
their habits of life demanded; but in many cases 
these same birds would have adapted themselves to 
the new condition but for the inhuman persecution 
to which they were subjected. The phrase ‘there 
are more gunners than birds” is often literally true, 
and raises the question of the propriety of allowing 
fire-arms to be so freely carried as they are. Birds 
should be the wards of the general government, and 
not the property of the individual upon whose land 
they happen for the time being to tarry. This, 
doubtless, will never be brought about, and unless a 
very radical change takes place in the mind of the 
community, the great bulk of bird-life will soon be a 
thing of the past, and when too late the agricultural 
interests will awake to the fact that the birds were 
better friends than they supposed, and did _ better 
works than the insecticides that have now to be used 
so freely upon fruit-trees, and even annual growths. 
The rose-breasted grosbeak, the scarlet tanager, and 
the cardinal red-bird are all fond of potato-beetles ; 
but how long would they remain unmolested if they 
appeared boldly in the fields? Loafers with shot- 
guns and boys with slung-shots would quickly make 
way with them; and why? Because there are silly 
women who will pay well to put such birds upon 
their bonnets. 
Nor can the professional ornithologist escape cen- 
sure in this matter of bird-slaughter. There has 
