594 HOW DOES MAN CONSERVE HIS RESOURCES? 



PROBLEM IV. WHAT IS BEING DONE FOR THE 

 CONSERVATION OF BIRDS? 



We have already learned that birds, with few exceptions, are 

 of very great value to man, through their destruction of weed seeds 

 and of insects harmful to crops. But in spite of this fact, many 

 species of birds have been almost exterminated in this and othei 

 countries, and the total number of birds has decreased to an 

 alarming extent. This has been due largely to killing for food and 



" sport," and for plumage. 

 A few decades ago the spray- 

 ing of trees was unknown; 

 today $10,000,000 or more 

 a year is spent for labor 

 and sprays. It is estimated 

 by Dr. Hornaday, of the 

 New York Zoological Park, 

 that a yearly toll of $520,- 

 000,000 now collected by 

 insects might be saved if 

 we had as many birds as 

 formerly. 



The American passenger 

 pigeon, once very abundant 

 in the Middle West, is now 

 extinct. Audubon, the 

 greatest of all American bird 

 lovers, gave a graphic ac- 

 count of the migration of a flock of these birds. So numerous 

 were they that when the flock rose in the air, the sun was 

 darkened, and at night the weight of the roosting birds broke 

 down large branches of the trees in which they rested. Today 

 not a single specimen of this pigeon can be found, because 

 they were slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands during the 

 breeding season. As late as 1869 one Michigan town marketed 

 11,888,000 pigeons in forty days. The wholesale killing of the 

 snowy egret to furnish ornaments for ladies' headwear is another 



Dr. Alfred O. Gross 



In early colonial times the heath hen was veiy 

 abundant from Maine to the Carolinas. But 

 hunters, disease, and fire have exterminated the 

 entire race except one. This lone survivor is found 

 on Martha's Vineyard Island across the sound from 

 the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, 

 and is under the protection of conservation organiza- 

 tions of the state of Massachusetts. 



