24 
— Alatural History. 
THE DESTRUCTION OF SMALL BIRDS. 
UCH has been said and written of the destruction of 
our large game in the Adirondacks and on the West- 
ern plains and mountains, but how little is known of the 
enormous numbers of small birds that are daily being killed 
for purposes of decoration, 
It is difficult for one who has not made a special study of 
this subject to realize how much harm in every way is being 
done by this means. The farmers, above all, have deep 
cause to regret this extermination of our small birds. Bird 
life exists almost wholly through the death of some other 
form of life, and by destroying insects, worms, and other 
noxious creatures, the bird is of the greatest use to the 
farmer by protecting his crops. The vast slaughter that is 
going on among our birds is already a source of serious 
anxiety to all who take an enlightened interest in agriculture, 
It is only by means of figures that one can comprehend 
how inyaluable is the help given by these creatures. Insects 
produce and reproduce with such marvelous fecundity that 
in one season a single parent may be the progenitor of 
many thousand offspring. It is easy to see, therefore, how 
prodigious would be the increase of insect life were 
not these creatures destroyed and kept down by some 
efficient check, 
This is what the birds do for us to a much greater extent 
than is generally understood. The number of times that a 
pair of birds will visit their nests in a day, each time with 
an insect, is very large, as was shown by a recent record in 
these columns, and their work lasts through the season 
when insect life is on the increase. 
Unless some active measures be at once taken to stop this 
wholesale slaughter it will not be long before their ranks are 
greatly thinned. We must realize how important this 
matter is, and must realize it now. The number of birds 
killed every month for millinery and other purposes is im- 
mense, and the number of people engaged in their pursuit is 
constantly increasing. We shall lose all our small birds un- 
less something is done. 
Aside from the agriculturist’s point of view and the 
merely practical side of the question, we must reflect on the 
pleasure all derive from the presence of birds, It is a great 
@elight not only to hear them but to watch them, and to un- 
derstand, as we can by careful observation, their ways and 
life. When we consider the enjoyment they have given us 
and the good they aze constantly doing, should we not make 
eyery effort to prevent their extermination? 
While no exception ean be taken to the killing of birds 
for truly scientific purposes, the wholesale slaughter which 
is taking place in many Jocalities is deserving of the severest 
condemnation, This destruction goes on mainly about the 
great centers, but it is by no means confined to any one sec- 
tion. We know, for example, of one dealer residing on 
Long Island who, during a three months’ trip to the coast of 
South Carolina last spring, prepared no less than 11,018 
bird skins. A considerable number of the birds killed were 
of course too much mutilated for preparation, so that the 
total number of the slain would be much greater than the 
number given. The person referred to states that he handles 
on an average 30,000 skins per annum, of which the greater 
part are cut up for millinery purposes. 
This in the past. At present the trade is growing, and at 
a rate which is startling. Weare told by people who have 
the best facilities for knowing, that there are, and have been 
since early spring, hundreds of people on Long Island, shoot- 
ing birds for the middlemen, who supply the taxidermists 
and dealers. 
During the past spring and summer and up to the present 
time, Jarge boxes of birds ‘in the flesh” are coming into New 
York. They are delivered to taxidermists, who employ girls 
to skin for them, and then sell the prepared skins at ten or 
eleven cents each. From a single locality on Long Island, 
one man, who buys from the local gunners, sent in during 
the week ending July 26, over $300 worth of birds. As the 
prepared skins sell, as stated, for about ten cents apiece, the 
number of birds must have been considerably over 3,000, and 
the total destruction was probably at least one-half greater. 
This same man has sent, during this season, from the early 
spring until the present time, an average of 300 birds a day 
to a William strect taxidermist, 200 a day to a Bleecker street 
man, and from 100 to 150 per day to a dealer in New Jersey; 
or an average of between 600 and 700 birds daily fora period 
of four months, making a total of not far from 70,000 birds 
inall. This, be it remembered, is from onesingle village on 
Long Island, It should be added that, besides these birds 
sent to the dealers, this same individual sends in a yast 
quantity of snipe to the New York markets. 
Of all the cases which have come under our notice since 
we first set on foot inquiries in regard to this subject, this is 
the most appalling, but there are others that are only less so. 
A father and two sons shot for three weeks near Rockaway, 
and made over 2,000 skins; there is amanat Sag Harbor, and 
another at Shelter Island, who are preparing skins; a man 
near Bath does the same. Im fact, there seems to be a great 
opportunity for Game Protector G, W. Whittaker, whose 
jurisdiction extends over the counties of Kings, Queens and 
Suffolk, todo a lot of missionary work in enforcing the 
statute for the protection of insectiyorous birds. Ifthat gen- 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
tleman will call at our office he can obtain names and figures 
which may aid him in his work. 
The eyil to which we are calling attention isnot, however, 
confined to any one section of the country. The water 
birds, perhaps because they are larger than our insectivorous 
birds, seem to be quite as eagerly sought after as the land 
birds, and are shot literally by myriads. The dealers com- 
plain that there are ‘‘no sea-swallows now.” Strange, is it 
not, that there should be none? The following extract from 
the Baltimore Sun may suggest an explanation of the 
mystery, Read it: 
During @ recent trip with the Orpheus Sailing Club, of Baltimore, 
to the well-known Cobb’s Island, the following facts were ascertained 
and created a very unpleasantimpression: An enterprising woman 
from New York has contracted with a Paris millinery firm to deliver 
during this summer 40,000 or more skins of birds at 40 cents 4 piece, 
With several taxidermists she was carrying out the contract, having 
engaged young and old to kill birds of different kinds, and paying 
them 10 cents for each specimen not 1oo much mutilated for millimery 
purposes. The plumage of most of the birds to be obtained at this 
island is plain, but with the assistance of a little dye it is soon trans_ 
formed into that of the gayly-colored tropical birds, The birds com_ 
prised in this wholesale slaughter are mainly the different species of 
gulls and terns, or sea swallows, of which many species in large num- 
bers could formerly be found upon this island. But now only few of 
these graceful birds remain upon Cobb's Island itself, and the pot- 
hunters, or rather the skin-hunters, have to go some distance to carry 
out their cruel scheme. If we consider that with each old bird 
killed—and only old birds haye a suitable plumage—also many of the 
young birds, stillunable to take care of themselves, are doomed to 
starvation, this wholesale slanghter becomes still more infamous and 
criminal. 
We happen to know that the above is no exaggeration but 
is strictly true, Is this nota rather alarming state of affairs? 
On the whole it is about as bad as what is taking place on 
Long Island, 
Now what is the public, and especially the great army of 
bird lovers in the United States, going to do about this? 
What do the farmers and the fishermen think of the de- 
struction of their friends and allies, the birds? 
It is an easy matter to sit still and do nothing, It will be 
some trouble to call the attention of one’s friends and neigh- 
bors to the subject, and to urge each one of them to do what 
he can to stop this butchery; some trouble to warn off from 
one’s premises every man who caries a gun; some trouble 
to go a little out of your way to speak to the local game 
protector, or to write him a letter, 
We feel sure that one class of men will put their shoulder 
to the wheel wilh earnestness, and will by every means in 
their power strive to bring about the result which is so 
desirable. This class includes those men who best know 
the birds, and who by their interest in nature are brought so 
close to her creatures that they regard them with a tender- 
ness and an affection which many men could never compre- 
hend. 
But we believe that there are many besides the ornitholo- 
gists who love our birds as truly and deeply as they do, and 
on all such we urge the importance of this subject. 
FRUIT-EATING BIRDS, 
ee robin, so far as the fruit grower is concerned, is 
yery easily managed, especially if the fruit gardens are 
somewhat isolated. All one has to do to protect his fruit 
from the robins is to shoot a few pairs when they begin to 
mate and nest in the spring. This will frighten the others 
from your place and vicinity, and as they are a yery domes- 
tic and local bird when breeding they will give no trouble 
that season. If this is not done—the small fruit farm being 
a permanent institution—trom the well-known habit of the 
robin to return to the same vicinity year after year to nest, 
they would so icrease as to well nigh get all the fruit. 
At my present home, where I located twenty years ago, it 
being in the center of a small prairie, fairly exposed to the 
fierce winds of winter, I planted a great many evergreen 
trees for wind breaks and shelter, There are many of them 
now thirty feet tall, with very thick foliage, thus making an 
evergreen island on the bleak prairie in early spring, In this 
grove the robins, in their northward spring migration, find a 
secure shelter and roosting place, and they frequent it by 
thousands and tens of thousands from two to three weeks 
every spring. They commence to come into this grove of 
evergreens about 5 o’clock in the evening and keep it up 
until it is quite dark, coming from every direction. They 
leave in the morning from the first peep of day until, by 
sun up, they are all gone. This robins’ roost is of very 
ercat benefit to the surrounding country, for they destroy 
yast numbers of noxious insects, especially the field eut- 
worms. Suddenly they nearly all leave for further north, 
leaying behind only enough of the vast multitude to fairly 
“settle” the country. I seldom trouble them until the flight 
is gone and they begin to pair and build their nests, but 
sometimes I shoot enough for a pot-pie with my ,38-caliber 
shotgun and No. 12 shot. 
The eatbird I consider the most injurious of all hirds to 
the grower of small fruits. He gets the first strawberry 
that ripens, and sticks to it_manfully until he has gobbled 
the last grape on the vines. He is an unmitigated nuisance, 
and the fruit grower does just mght if he kills him on sight 
every time. So bad have I found him that I think they 
should not. have the protection of the law at any time nor 
season, but be killed without compunction by all who wish 
at all seasons. ‘The catbird, like the robin, comes back after 
migrating to the same vicinity to breed. I am isolated from 
timber and making a business of growing the fruits the cat- 
bird so dearly loves to devour, and if I did not kill them 
about as fast as they appear in the spring I would not be 
able to supply the catbirds, let alone the markets, with small 
fruits, I have stood in a little blackberry patch on my place 
and killed twenty-two catbirds at twenty-three shots with 
my .22-caliber Ballard rifle, loaded with breech caps, without 
moving from my tracks. The present season being very 
busy and haying, as I supposed, such a vast quantity of 
small fruits that there would be a great plenty for me and 
the catbirds both, I did not shoot any, but-I now see thai I 
made a very costly mistake, for they are so numerous that 
they are taking nearly all my raspberries, and badly injur- 
[Aue. 7, 1884. 
ing the gathering of the crop that they leave, and they will 
also spoil my blackberry crop. Such isthe prose of the cat- 
bird. Some sentimental individual gave us the poetry of 
this soul-inspiring and berry-gobbling bird in a late issue of 
this journal, Were he a cultivator of the small fruits he 
would as soon think of finding poetry in the flea, bedbug, 
potato bug or plum curculio. Coues, in writing of the 
catbird, says: ‘'*Who could hope to rise in the world wear- 
ing a pepper-and-salt jacket, a black velvet skull cap and a 
large red patch on the seat of his pantaloons.” I have no re- 
spect at all for the bird, and therefore shall continue to wel- 
come him with bloody hands to a bloody dose of No. 12. 
quia on a occasions hereafter. BYRNE. 
Acon, Ill, 
GROUSE OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE. 
Editor Forest and, Stream: : 
I see the boys have been talking of game birds abroad, So 
I will tell them of some we have in Washington Territory. 
The largest, grouse found in this Territory is the sage hen, 
These liye in the yicinity of Walluba, Ainsworth, and 
several places on Snake River. The next in size is the pine 
hen, on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains, They 
are called by some blue grouse, although they differ some- 
what from the blue grouse on the western slopes of the Cas- 
cades, for on the east side of the mountains they are some- 
what lighter colored, and when hooting only give one hoot, 
while those on the western slope give five hoots, and are 
called hooting grouse. Their flesh is white and sweet. The 
prairie hen is found all over the eastern plains. They are 
light-colored, long pin-tailed, and fly very swiftly. They 
are found in large numbers around Spokane Falls, though I 
think the Pallouse country can’t be beat for them. Tool 
hens may be found all over the eastern slopes of the Cas- 
cade Mountains. I have never seen any on the western 
slopes. The white grouse can be found near all of the snow 
mountains. They are found where they are not likelv to 
be molested, for by the time one has climbed up to where 
they live, he will have all he can do to craw] back. They 
are, to some extent, nocturnal in their habits, for I have 
heard them ufter it was too dark to see them, flying around, 
whistling incessantly, calling each other. They live on a 
short kind of moss that grows on rocks wherever there’s no 
snow. White grouse are about the size of a ruffed grouse. 
Their legs have long feathers on them even down to the toes, 
and in soft snow they make atrack nearly like a cat. 
Pheasants, or ruffed grouse, are very numerous on all of the 
western slopes of the mountains, and along the rivers even 
more so, In the fall of the year one can kill all he wants in 
a sbort space of time. They are found best with a small 
dog. JinsA Ton. 
WeHarcome, Wash. Ter., July, 1884. 
RARE BIRDS ON LONG ISLAND. 
Kiditor Forest and Stream: 
Several noteworthy captures of birds have occurred dur- 
ing the past spring on Long Island, a few of which I wish 
to record. ; 
Porzana jamaicensis—Little Black Rail.—1. A bird of this 
species was taken last spring by C. Sargood, of Williamsburgh, 
L. 1., near Canarsie or East New York. It was on the up- 
Jand when first started, and was shot at ineffectually. The 
same or another bird was then flushed from near the spot 
where it had alighted and killed. The specimen was iden 
tified by J. Wallace. 2. Another rail of this species was 
killed Aug. 1 or 2, near South Oyster Bay, L. L., but I have: 
learned nothing of the circumstances of its capture. I ex 
amined the bird, which proved to be a male in good plumage, 
The only other individual of these species taken on Long 
Islund, of which I have any recollection, is one secured by a 
tosn named Simpson five or six years ago, near Canarsie, 
and now believed to be in the possession of Mr. Robert B. 
Lawrence, of this city. : 
Rhynchops néigra—Black Skimmer,—A full plumaged 
adult male of this species was taken near South Oyster Bay 
on Saturday last (Aug. 2), and sent into this city, where J 
saw it. The appearance of this bird recalls the remarkable 
flight of skimmers which took place a few years ago along 
the Long Island and New England coasts. 
Herodias alba egretta—White Egret.—A bird, which was 
described to me with such detail that | am convinced that it 
was this species, was seen near Fire Island, Long Island, 
July 27, by Mr. I. P. Martin, Jr. The species occurs not 
very infrequently on Long Island, and it would be interest- 
ing to learn whether any of your correspondents have ob- 
served it this year. 
Guarzetta candidissima—Little White Heron.—Mr, J. Wal- 
lace informs me tbat he has received during the past spring 
‘and summer about a dozen birds of this'species ‘‘in the flesh” 
from the vicinity of South Oyster Bay, Long Island. 
These occurrences would seem to indicate that there has 
been a somewhat unusual movement of Southern water birds 
northward along the Atlantic coast this summer, and it would 
seem desirable that collectors and observers should at once 
put on record their observations of the occurrence of species 
unusual in their vicinity. Gro, Brrp GRINNELL. 
New York, August 5. 
How Turrims Dig rHerR Houes,—Berlin Heights, O., 
July 21.—Haditor Forest and Stream: Regarding that tough 
turile, I will say that it would move when irritated forty 
days after decapitation. The fortieth day the movements 
were so feeble that I gave it no further attention, I have 
seen the note from Mr. Burr H. Polk, of Lincoln, Neb., 
stating his observations Sead the manner in which the 
turtle digs holes in hard ground to deposit her cass. His 
observations were the same as I once witnessed, owever, 
I do not think the moisture a urinary secretion, for I do not 
believe they have kidneys more than a hen, but think they 
fill themselves with water for the occasion. This is only my 
opinion in the matter. If some one knows, let him come to 
the front and enlighten us.—M. M. Brenscuorer. 
Recent ARRIVALS AT THE PHILADELPHIA ZOOLOGICAL GARDFN,— 
Received by purchase—Two wildcats (Lynx rufus), four sparrow 
hawks (Malco sparverius), four pairs of crested pigeons (Ocyphaps 
lophotes), and five pine snakes Pituophis melanoleucus). Received 
by presentation—Two woodchucks (Arctomys mona), one red fox 
(Vulpes fulus), one raccoon (Procyon lotor), one opossum (Didel- 
phys virginiana), one Swainson’s buzzard (B, swatnsoni),ihree screech 
owls (Scops asio), one American crow feorots americanus), one 
booby gannet (Sulu fiber), one red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes 
erythrocephalus), two peafowl (Pavo cristata), one summer duck 
(Aia sponsa), seven alligators (Alligator mississippiensis), one black 
snake (Bascanion constrictor), one milk snake (0. dotiatus trian - 
ulus), one pine snake \Pituophis melanoleucus), one gila monster 
(Heloderma suspectum) and one horned toad Pale pera COrnuUta): 
Received by exchanze—One tigrine snake (Tropidonotus tigrinus). 
Born in the Garden—one mazame deer (Cervus campestris), two 
fallow deer (Cervus dama), three Virginia deer (Cervus virginianus), 
one elk (Cervus canadensis), one eland (Oreas canna), aud one pea 
fowl (Pawo cristata), : 
_- —— 
—_—— a 
