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SCIEXGE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 160 



history specimens, to stuff as objects of curiosity 

 or ornament, and for personal decoration. The 

 birds killed for food are, of course, mainly the com- 

 monly so-called game-birds, — pigeons, grouse of 

 various kinds, ducks and geese, and the great 

 horde of smaller waders, known as ' peeps,' snipes, 

 plovers, rails, etc. The slaughter of these has 

 been so improvident, and their decrease of late so 

 marked, that they are now more or less cared for 

 by the numerous game-protective associations, but 

 are still, in the main, very inadequately guarded. 

 In addition to the birds commonly recognized as 

 game-birds, many song-birds are hunted for food, 

 notably the reed-bird, or bobolink, the robin, the 

 meadow-lark, the blackbird, and the flicker, and, 

 in some localities, all the larger song-birds. This 

 is particularly the case in portions of the south, 

 where strings of small birds may be seen sus- 

 pended in the game-stalls. In March of last year, 

 a well-known ornithologist reports finding in 

 the market at Norfolk. Va., hundreds of wood- 

 peckers and song-birds exposed for sale as food, 

 the list of species including not only robins, 

 meadow-larks, and blackbirds, but many kinds of 

 sparrows and thrushes, and even warblers, vireos, 

 and wax -wings. While some of the stalls had 

 each from three hundred to four hundred small 

 birds, others would have but a dozen or two. 

 •• Nearly all the venders were colored people, and 

 doubtless most of the birds were captured by the 

 same class." This ' daily exhibition in southern 

 markets ' indicates an immense destruction of 

 northern-breeding song-birds which resort to the 

 southern states for a winter home. 



As shown in a subsequent paper of this Sup- 

 plement, the eggs of many species of terns, gulls, 

 plovers, and other marsh and shore breeding 

 species, are systematically taken for use as food, 

 the egg-hunting business being prosecuted to such 

 an extent as to prove a serious cause of decrease of 

 the species thus persecuted, while the value as food, 

 of the eggs thus destroyed, is too trivial to be for an 

 instant regarded as of serious importance. The 

 havoc described below by Mr. Sennett as wrought 

 in Texas prevails all along our coast-lines ; and 

 many localities might be cited where the destruc- 

 tion is equally sweeping, as on the Pacific coast 

 and at frequent points on the Atlantic coast from 

 Florida to Labrador, — wherever, in fact, the birds 

 occur in sufficient numbers to render such whole- 

 sale plundering practicable. The marsh-breeding 

 rails are at some localities subject to similar 

 persecution. At one locality on Long Island, I 

 am informed, a ' bay-man,' who keeps a house of 

 entertainment for sportsmen during ' the season,' 

 supplies his table for weeks at a time with the eggs 

 of the rails that breed numerously in his vicinity, 



— in strange conflict, too, with his own interests, 

 since, by destroying the eggs of the rails, he ' kills 

 the goose that lays the golden egg' for the rail- 

 shooting season. 



In general, the game and quasi-game birds are 

 killed for sport rather than for gain or for their 

 intrinsic value as food : exception, however, is to 

 be made of the ' professional ' or ' market ' gun- 

 ners, by whom the ranks of the water-fowl are so 

 fearfully thinned, and who often resort to any 

 wholesale method of slaughter their ingenuity 

 may be able to devise. But the slaughter of our 

 birds in general is doubtless largely due to the 

 mere fascination of 'shooting.' Many song-birds 

 are killed ' for sport' by the 'small boy' and the 

 idler, whose highest ambition in life is to possess a 

 gun, and whose ' game ' may be any wild animal 

 that can run or fly, and wears fur or feathers. 

 Some slight depredation on the small fruits of the 

 garden, or on field-crops, is ample pretext for a 

 war of extermination on robins, catbirds and 

 thrashers, jays and chewinks, as well as black- 

 birds and crows, and the birds so unfortunate as 

 to fall into the category of hawks and owls, not- 

 withstanding the fact that every one of these 

 species is in reality a friend. Yet the slaughter 

 is winked at, if not actually encouraged, by 

 those who are most injured by it ; while the 

 'general public' of the districts where such 

 practices prevail are either too ignorant of the 

 real harm done, or too apathetic, to raise any 

 serious protest. 



Among the important agencies in bird-destruc- 

 tion is the ' bad small boy ' — and in the ornith- 

 ological sense his name is legion — of both town 

 and country. Bird-nest robbing is one of the 

 besetting sins — one of the marks of ' natural 

 depravity ' — of the average small boy, who fails 

 to appreciate the cruelty of systematically robbing 

 every nest within reach, and of stoning those that 

 are otherwise inaccessible. To him the birds 

 themselves, too, are also a fair target for a stone, 

 a sling, a catapult, or a ' pea-shooter : ' to the 

 latter many a sparrow, a thrush, or warbler falls 

 a victim. Says a recent writer on the subject of 

 bird-destruction, "Two ten-year-old lads in that 

 quiet and moral hamlet [Bridgehampton, Long 

 Island] confessed this autumn, that with pen- 

 shooters they liad killed during the season fifty 

 robins and other birds which frequent the gar- 

 dens, orchards, and cemetery. Such boys exist 

 all over the United States, and war on birds as 

 things made to be killed. . . . The pea-shooter 

 gives no sound, and can be carried in the vest- 

 pocket ; but so destructive is it in the hands of a 

 skilful child, that the legislatures of some of the 

 western states were obliged to pass laws making 



