igo 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. 



