INTRODUCTION. 3 
at least has not been known to breed in the eastern United 
States.3 
“ Bird-collecting, on the other hand, unavoidably leads to 
more or less cruelty, in many cases to absolute barbarity, 
and is at present carried to an alarming excess. Slaughter 
by hundreds should be permitted among only a few eminent 
and competent naturalists, such as Messrs. Allen and Coues. 
Otherwise, it becomes an outrage upon nature, a positive in- 
jury to science, and a mere source of self-gratification. Young 
collectors, who are not to become scientists, should form their 
collections for the sake of beauty in nature, and might well 
be satisfied with two good specimens, well-mounted, of each 
kind, namely: the mature male and female. In the case of 
a scientific collection this would be wholly inadmissible, and 
collectors should certainly shoot any specimen of a kind never 
before taken in that district where they may chance to meet 
it, or those birds which they find in a country new to them- 
selves, or perhaps to all ornithologists. Otherwise, may I 
venture to ask what new facts one can make known from own- 
ing the skins of several hundred unfortunate robins? All our 
rarer birds, or those of market-value, are in danger of being 
altogether exterminated, through a foolish sense of glory on 
man’s part, or through his reckless destruction of other than 
human life. It is also to be regretted that so many birds-are 
shot, before laying their eggs, owing to the condition of their 
plumage and their abundance, during or immediately after 
their spring migrations. Nature’s resources should be drawn 
upon only in cases of necessity, or in contribution to the ad- 
vancement of mankind. Violation of nature, as of the natural 
3See farther §13, I, D and E, for the very slight distinction between the War- 
bling and Philadelphia Vireo. 
