20 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



shape of hen's eggs alone, exceeds annually that of all the 

 mines of gold, silver, and other precious metals ; but what- 

 ever the actual statistics maybe, the food and feather sources 

 of revenue are certainly enormous, and few industries yield 

 greater profit for the comparatively small capital required. 

 No one denies or even questions man's right to convert the 

 animal world to his own uses ; he may slay and eat, and in 

 all ways command the life or death of creatures lower than 

 himself in the scale of organization ; he has always and will 

 always do so, everywhere ; his sovereignty in this regard is 

 undisputed and indisputable. And thus it is that birds 

 which of their own nature and volition are neutral or indif- 

 ferent in the service of man, are forced into human relations 

 of the most eminent practical utility, alike during their in- 

 nocent lives and in their victimized deaths. 



Lest I appear as only a partisan of birds, or a special 

 pleader in a case I may seem to have prejudged, let us hear 

 the other side, and see what counter-arguments or even in- 

 dictments can be brought to bear against the objects of our 

 present solicitude. Let us keep upon the same plane of 

 practical utility, measurable in money, and attempt some 

 estimate of damage done by certain birds, confining atten- 

 tion also to our own country, with which we are naturally 

 most concerned. We have seen birds as our wholesale 

 creditors ; can the account be balanced in an}' items with 

 which they must be debited ? 



Several such items are readily scored against birds. In 

 the first place, some birds which are neutral in direct account 

 with man become his enemies by their destruction of other 

 birds which are useful to him. A part of the birds of prey 

 are thus hurtful, not so much by their raids on poultry as 

 by their destruction of insectivorous birds. Such rapacious 

 species, in this country, belong especially to the genera 

 Falco and Accipiter, the members of which eat relatively few 

 insects, and do not destroy ver}' many small mammals or 

 reptiles, but are active and effectual in their sanguinary 



