R. W. SHUFELDT, M.D. 187 



large proportion of them perish. Quantities are destroyed 

 by "feather-hunters" to supply the demands of fashion. 

 Numbers are killed by ignorant farm-hands, who labor under 

 the impression that they do humanity a direct benefit every 

 time they take the life of a King-bird, a Martin, or a Marsh 

 Hawk. 



Then there are a few taxidermists who habitually destroy 

 birds as a business, to preserve their skins and mount them 

 for sale. As a rule, however, taxidermists are engaged only 

 in the preservation of such birds as are brought to them, or 

 else pursue their profession in scientific educational institu- 

 tions or elsewhere. 



Next we meet with every grade of amateur and scientific 

 collectors of bird-skins, who claim each year a certain pro- 

 portion of specimens for scientific or semi-scientific pur- 

 poses. In nature, also, some species prey upon others and 

 thousands are thus annually destroyed, while every season 

 the lives of millions of others are claimed by storms, high 

 winds and downpours of heavy rain. Certain predatory 

 mammals capture others, or reptiles devour their young. No 

 doubt, finally, that diseases, injuries and accidents take away 

 their annual quota, but the proportion thus destroyed must, 

 in comparison with other causes of mortality, be exceedingly 

 small. 



Now for a number of years past it has been widely noticed 

 that in the suburban districts of many cities all over the 

 United States, there has been a more or less marked decrease 

 in numbers of many of our native birds, as, for example, 

 Orioles, Robins, Blue-birds and many other species. Fre- 

 quently such reports are only too well founded in fact, while 

 in other cases they have been over-rated. Certain it is, 

 nevertheless, that within the last twenty years birds in the 

 most of such localities have been becoming more and more 

 scarce, while in some places where certain species were for- 

 merly abundant, those very species are practically now al- 

 most extinct. Numerous inquiries, scientific and otherwise, 



