R. W. SHUFELDT, M.D. 187 
large proportion of them perish. Quantities are destroyed 
by ‘“feather-hunters” to supply the demands of fashion. 
Numbers are killed by ignorant farm-hands, who labor under 
the impression that they do humanity a direct benefit every 
time they take the life of a King-bird, a Martin, or a Marsh 
Hawk, 
Then there are a few taxidermists who habitually destroy 
birds as a business, to preserve their skins and mount them 
for sale. Asa rule, however, taxidermists are engaged only 
in the preservation of such birds as are brought to them, or 
else pursue their profession in scientific educational institu- 
tions or elsewhere. 
Next we meet with every grade of amateur and scientific 
collectors of bird-skins, who claim each year a certain pro- 
portion of specimens for scientific or semi-scientific pur- 
poses. In nature, also, some species prey upon others and 
thousands are thus annually destroyed, while every season 
the lives of millions of others are claimed by storms, high 
winds and downpours of heavy rain. Certain predatory 
mammals capture others, or reptiles devour their young. No 
doubt, finally, that diseases, injuries and accidents take away 
their annual quota, but the proportion thus destroyed must, 
in comparison with other causes of mortality, be exceedingly 
small, 
Now for a number of years past it has been widely noticed 
that in the suburban districts of many cities all over the 
United States, there has been a more or less marked decrease 
in numbers of many of our native birds, as, for example, 
Orioles, Robins, Blue-birds and many other species. Fre- 
quently such reports are only too well founded in fact, while 
in other cases they have been over-rated. Certain it is, 
nevertheless, that within the last twenty years birds in the 
most of such localities have been becoming more and more 
scarce, while in some places where certain species were for- 
merly abundant, those very species are practically now al- 
most extinct. Numerous inquiries, scientific and otherwise, 
