The IIawkeye Oknitiioi.ogist axd Ooi.ogist. 



A MERCILESS WAR UPON BIRDS. 



Condensed from an Address by Hon. Chaiu.es 



Ai^drich, before the Iowa State 



Horticultural Society. 



There can be no doubt that the 

 birds of Iowa, as of the country at 

 large, are yearly diminishing at a rate 

 which should excite our most serious 

 apprehensions, though we would 

 seem to be less merciless in some re- 

 spects, in the treatment we give them, 

 than the people of certain other re- 

 gions. Though we are, just now, 

 enjoying beautiful winter weather, 

 there is a wonderful dearth of birds. 

 The noisy jays, troops of charming 

 little chickadees, the busy horned 

 larks, creepers, nut-hatches, winter 

 sparrows, robins and blackbirds, 

 that once enlivened our woods in 

 winter, are gone with few excep- 

 tions. 



Many species that breed in the 

 wild regions of the far north, come 

 here to winter. These, and still more, 

 our own summer birds, are rapidly 

 disappearing from the lan-1. As to 

 the cause of this alarming change, 

 the rapid settlement of the land may 

 be the first mentioned. The break- 

 ing-plow and the tile-drain are con- 

 stantly transforming the prairie 

 sloughs into dry land, and thus de- 

 stroying the haunts of red-wings, 

 yellow-headed blackbirds and marsh 

 wrens, that builds their nests in the 

 tops of reeds and coarse grasses, above 

 the water, to protect their young 

 from foxes and other vermin. We 

 have in Iowa one hundred or more 

 tile factories. They rapidly aid the 

 removal of these beautiful birds to 

 other regions, never to return. The 

 consequent loss to the farmer, gar- 

 dener, and orchardist, may be faintly 

 imagined from an estimate made by 

 Wilson, the father of x\meric,an orni- 

 thology. He stated that these three 

 species above — red-wings, yellow- 

 headed blackbirds and marsh wrens 

 — annually destroyed in the then 

 limited area of the United States, 16,- 

 000,000,000 insects. They are among 

 the earliest birds to return from the 

 Sunny South; for many of them are 

 singing in the tree-tops in February, 



while the ground is still covered with 

 snow. They are the last to leave us 

 in autumn or winter. They do 

 little damage, so little indeed, in com- 

 parison with their useful work, that 

 a decent Christian should be asham- 

 ed to mention it; though it was once 

 attempted with marvellous stupidity 

 and monumental wickedness to pass 

 a law in Iowa offering rewards for 

 their destruction. The bill made 

 good progress, but was ridiculed to 

 death by Hon. Thomas W. Clagett, 

 then a Representative from Lee 

 County. Without his timely inter- 

 position this most disgraceful propo- 

 sition might posibly have become a 

 law of the state. That the beautiful 

 red-wings do a world of good, that 

 they are most emphatically "feather- 

 ed friends," the observations of Alex- 

 ander Wilson fully proved almost a 

 century ago. 



Mr. Aldrich then speaks of the 

 rapid destruction of forests, and the 

 fact that we are not planting enough 

 of the right kinds of timber to hold 

 our own with the birds. 



But there are, he continues, two 

 modes of bird destruction in active, 

 increasing operation, which occasion 

 more wholesale losses than all others. 

 They ought to be easily preventable, 

 and "would be, if we had an enlight- 

 ened public sentiment on the side of 

 the birds and humanity. The first 

 mode referred to is the universal 

 slaughter of birds for millinery pur- 

 poses, which has at last aroused a 

 general protest, and a determination 

 to change the fashion. "Live skins" 

 are considered the best! Who would 

 encourage so inhuman a practice? 



Lastly, the mania for stealing eggs 

 is referred to. Sharp eyed small 

 boys are allowed to range the fields 

 and woods for the purpose of making 

 "collections" of birds' eggs. Every 

 accessible nest is harried; the eggs 

 are "blown," and then arranged in 

 "strings'" or boxes. People who are 

 very strict in sending their boys to 

 Sunday School, and requiring per- 

 fect lessons, still encourage this wick- 

 ed and unlawful business of robbing 

 nests! Yes, we have laws, but they 

 are not enforced. 



America's ornithologists should 

 see that public sentiment is aroused 

 to a just sense of the magnitude of 

 the fashion evil, and that the laws 

 forbidding "collecting" for unscieji- 

 tifical purposes be enforced. 



