190 SOME RECENT QUESTIONS IN ORNITHOLOGY. 
accuracy. Hundreds of those guns are sold annually to 
boys, and the latter never seem to tire of strolling about 
orchards and hedge-rows and knocking over dozens upon 
dozens of birds with them. One day last spring I met one 
such youngster, and upon examining his game-bag found it 
absolutely crammed full of dead birds which he had killed 
since starting out in the morning. One item alone con- 
sisted of seventy-two Ruby and Golden-crowned Kinglets. 
The same fellow boasted of having slain over one hundred 
Cat-birds that season. Boys get to be wonderfully expert 
shots with the kind of guns to which I refer, and as the 
ammunition costs little or nothing, and a great quantity can be 
carried at a time, it is easy to be seen that between the 
wholesale slaughter they can and do commit, in addition to 
keeping the remaining birds perpetually alarmed, it is no 
wonder that they are soon driven away from the neighbor- 
hood of our cities and country seats. 
There are ample legal measures within our power to en- 
force, to prevent this cause of bird decrease, especially if 
the fathers of those boys are held responsible, and I would 
suggest that it be the sense of this Congress that such meas- 
ures will be recommended to the various State legislators 
hereafter that will have the tendency to thoroughly dis- 
courage such practices. 
