212 
the causes of the decrease of birds. 
But besides the natural and inevi- 
table results of the white man’s occu- 
pation of the American continent, cer- 
tain causes have been and still are at 
work which tend greatly to decrease 
the number of birds possible under 
existing conditions. To a large ex- 
tent these agencies are the result of 
human greed, cruelty, and ignorance, 
and the havoc they cause may be 
greatly checked by proper laws based 
upon and supported by the opinion 
of an enlightened public. 
Perhaps one of the most constant 
and serious of these agencies is the 
egg-collecting or nest-destroying 
boy. In almost every town and vil- 
lage there may be found a dozen or 
more youths who have frequent at- 
tacks of the collecting fever. Unfor- 
tunately the fever is often of the 
intermittent :ype, and the season’s 
collections are allowed to go to ruin 
before the advent of another spring. 
Every nook and cranny for miles 
around the headquarters of such a 
coterie is examined by sharp eyes, 
and the great majority of birds’ 
eggs are gathered in. Probably with 
ninety- nine boys out of a hundred 
these egg collections are soon forgot- 
ten, while the hundredth boy is too 
likely to become a mere collector 
who strives to see how many va- 
rieties of eggs he can get together 
without reference to the natural his- 
tory of the subject. To this class of 
collectors we owe the existence of 
the egg-dealers who collect eggs in 
large numbers to sell. The latter 
are the mercenary collectors, while 
the intermittent types are the aimless 
ones — a classification suggested by 
Col. W. H. M. Duthie, a Scottish 
ornithologist who well defines “the 
true collector” as “a naturalist ac- 
quainting himself with birds, their 
habits, flight, migration, and breed- 
ing haunts, his egg collecting being 
only one of the means of acquiring 
knowledge.” 
Birds’ eggs are sometimes collected 
by children to serve as Easter gifts 
the following season, — a sacrilege to 
which attention need scarcely be 
called to reveal its inappropriateness. 
Such an Easter present is a sacrifice 
of innocence rather than a thank- 
offering. 
Unfortunately the boy of the period 
does not limit his destructive powers 
to the gathering of eggs. The re- 
cent increase in cheap firearms has 
placed within his reach the means of 
killing feathered “game” at all sea- 
sons of the year. To this fact is due 
much of the diminution in the num- 
bers of small birds in the vicinity of 
towns and cities. Dr. R. W. Schu- 
feldt thinks that the wholesale de- 
struction carried on by the army of 
unscrupulous small boys is a reason 
for bird decrease, before which other 
reasons “stand aghast.'’ He reports 
meeting near Washington, D. C., 
“one such 3^oungster, and upon 
examining his game bag found it 
absolutely crammed full of dead 
bodies which he had killed since 
starting out in the morning. One 
item alone consisted of seventy-two 
ruby and golden-crowned kinglets. 
The fellow boasted of having slain 
over one hundred cat-birds that sea- 
son.” 
That the small boy is recognized 
in other countries as a prime factor 
in the decrease of birds is shown by 
the recent recommendation of a com- 
mittee of the British association for 
the advancement of science that par- 
ticular pains should be taken to in- 
