February 26, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



the sale of the thing a misdemeanor, and punishing 

 the possession or use of it." 



Perhaps equally, possibly more destructive, and 

 certainly more reprehensible, is the newly-arrived 

 ' foreign-born citizen,' who, to demonstrate to him- 

 self that he has really reached the ' land of the 

 free,' equips himself with a cheap shot-gun, some 

 bird-traps, clap-nets, or drugged grain, one or 

 all, and hies himself to the nearest haunt of birds 

 for indiscriminate, often very quiet, slaughter or 

 capture. Of course, only a few of our guests from 

 foreign shores either possess or indulge in this 

 propensity ; but in the neighborhood of our larger 

 cities, notably on Long Island, and elsewhere near 

 New York, the destruction of bird-life thus ef- 

 fected, we are credibly informed, is startlingly 

 large. 



The destruction of birds by taxidermists, and 

 for alleged ' scientific purposes,' has justly at- 

 tracted attention, and has unjustly brought into 

 disrepute the legitimate collecting of both eggs 

 and birds for scientific use ; but much of this 

 alleged scientific collecting is illegitimate, being 

 really done under false colors, or wrongly attrib- 

 uted to science. Of the birds killed or mounted 

 by taxidermists, some, not unfrequently a large 

 part, are for museums or private cabinets : another 

 large share is put "up for parlor or hall orna- 

 ments, either as groups or singly. All this, by 

 a little license, may be allowed as legitimate, or 

 at least not seriously reprehensible. But, unfortu- 

 nately, the average taxidermist has too often an 

 unsavory alliance with the milliner, and, in addi- 

 tion to his legitimate work, is allured into catering 

 on a large scale to the ' hat-trade.' Although a 

 few of them are too high-principled and too much 

 the naturalist at heart, to thus prostitute their 

 calling, taxidermists as a class are at present in 

 deserved disrepute, and are to a large degree re- 

 sponsible for much of the public and mistaken 

 criticism of scientific collecting. This criticism is 

 perhaps more especially directed against the ' egg- 

 collector,' who ranges in calibre and purpose from 

 the schoolboy, who gathers eggs as he does postage- 

 stamps or ' show-cards,' — for the mere purpose of 

 ' making a collection,' — to the intelligent oologist 

 or ornithologist, who gathers his eggs in sets, pre- 

 pares them with great care, with the strictest 

 regard to correct identification, and in series 

 sufficient to show the range of variation — often 

 considerable — in eggs of the same species, and 

 takes a few additional sets for exchange. He may 

 have in the aggregate a large collection, number- 

 ing hundreds of species, and thousands of speci- 

 mens ; but in general the same species is not laid 

 under serious requisition, and the sets are gathered 

 at considerable intervals of time and from a large 



area of country. A squad of street-urchins set 

 loose in the suburbs will often destroy as many 

 nests in a single morning's foray as a collector 

 gathering for strictly scientific purposes would 

 take in a whole season, and with far more harm- 

 ful results, because local and sweeping. Much of 

 the egg-collecting by schoolboys should be stopped, 

 and can be easily checked under proper statutory 

 regulations, as will be explained later in a paper 

 on bird-legislation. 



The scientific collector, as already intimated, 

 is charged, in some quarters, with the ' lion's 

 share' of the responsibility for the decrease of 

 our song-birds ; with what justice, or rather 

 injustice, may be easily shown, for the neces- 

 sary statistics are not difficult to obtain. The 

 catalogue of the ornithological department of the 

 national museum numbers rather less than 110,000 

 bird-skins. This record covers nearly half a 

 century, and the number of specimens is four 

 times greater than that of any other museum in this 

 country ; while the aggregate number of all our 

 other public museums would probably not greatly 

 exceed this number. But to make a liberal esti- 

 mate, with the chance for error on the side of 

 exaggeration, we will allow 300,000 birds for the 

 public museums of North America, one-half of 

 which, or nearly one-half, are of foreign origin, or 

 not North American. To revert to the national 

 museum collection, it should be stated, that, while 

 only part of the specimens are North American, — 

 say about two-thirds, — they represent the work 

 of many individuals, extending over a third of a 

 century, and over the whole continent, from 

 Alaska and Hudson Bay to Mexico and Florida, 

 and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Further- 

 more, this number — 110,000, more or less — is not 

 the number now in the national collection, which 

 is far less than this, thousands and thousands of 

 specimens having been distributed in past years to 

 other museums in this country and abroad. 



So far the public museums : now in relation to 

 private cabinets of bird-skins. Of these it is safe 

 to say there are hundreds scattered throughout 

 the country, containing from three hundred to five 

 or six hundred specimens each, with a few, easily 

 counted on the fingers of the two hands, if not on 

 a single hand, numbering five or six thousand 

 each, with possibly two approaching ten thousand 

 each. Probably 150,000 would be a liberal esti- 

 mate for the number of North American bird- 

 skins in private cabinets, but, again to throw the 

 error on the side of exaggeration, let us say 300,- 

 000, — not, however, taken in a single year, but 

 the result of all the collecting up to the present 

 time, and covering all parts of the continent. 

 Add this number to the number of birds in our 



