188 SOME RECENT QUESTIONS IN ORNITHOLOGY. 
have been made with the view of finding out, if possible, the 
cause or causes which are accountable for bringing about 
this very undesirable state of things. After more or less 
mature deliberation some attributed it to one cause, some to 
another, and some to a combination of causes. Many were 
disposed to believe that the introduction of the English Spar- 
row lay at the bottom of the whole trouble; in the eyes of 
some the “ feather-venders ” had all to do with it, while from 
other quarters the blame was attached entirely to the taxid- 
ermists and the bird collectors. As far as the writer has 
seen or heard not much importance has ever been attached 
to any other cause as a means of destruction of bird-life, 
with perhaps the exception of the introduction of large light- 
ing apparatuses in many places, where no doubt thousands 
of birds at night are yearly destroyed. 
For more reasons than one the introduction of the English 
Sparrow into this country was an expensive blunder, but 
that they are chiefly responsible for the disappearance of 
many of our native species of birds in the localities we have 
mentioned, I never have in that view been a firm believer, 
That the indiscriminate slaughter of small birds for mil- 
linery purposes, by conscience-ridden dealers, was for a long 
time a prime cause has been proven beyond cavil, and ‘such 
people should simply be prosecuted by all the rigor of the 
law, and made to desist quite as promptly as that party who 
would commit any act that threatened the agricultural in- 
terests of the country, for no one will question for a moment 
but what the removal of our insectivorous birds does that 
very thing. Were all the birds in the country destroyed 
there is no power known to man that could check the 
enormous increase in insect-life or the destruction of plant- 
life that would follow as a consequence. Such a wholesale 
disturbance of Nature’s balance will not occur ; while on the 
other hand I am not prepared to say whether the recent known 
decrease in our birds in certain localities has been followed 
by a corresponding increase of any particular species of 
