214 
THE CAUSES OF THE DECREASE OF BIRDS. 
surf-beaten shore and the wind-rip- 
pled bays, now one is rarely to be 
seen.” Land birds of all sorts have 
also suffered in a similar way, both 
on Long Island and in adjacent lo- 
calities in New Jersey. Nor have the 
interior regions of the United States 
escaped the visits of the milliner’s 
agent. x\n Indianapolis taxidermist 
is on record with the statement that 
in 1885 there were shipped from that 
city 5,000 bird-skins, collected in the 
Ohio valley. He adds that “no 
county in the state is free from the 
ornithological murderer,” and proph- 
sies that the birds will soon become 
very scarce in the state. 
These isolated examples can only 
suggest the enormous numbers of 
birds that are sacrificed on the altar 
of fashion. The universal use of 
birds for millinery purposes bears 
sufficient testimony to the fact. Yet 
it is probable that most women who 
follow the fashion seldom appreciate 
the suffering and economic losses 
which it involves. A few years ago 
the committee on Bird Protection of 
the American Ornithologists’ union, 
issued an appeal in which occurs this 
paragraph : 
“ So long as the demand continues 
the supply will come. Law of itself 
can be of little, perhaps of no ulti- 
mate, avail. It may give check, but 
this tide of destruction it is powerless 
to stay. The demand will be met ; 
the offenders will find it worth while 
to dare the law. One thing only 
will stop this cruelty, — the disappro- 
bation of fashion. It is our women 
who hold the great power. Let our 
women say the word and hundreds 
of thousands of bird lives every year 
will be preserved. And until woman 
does use her influence it is vain to 
hope that this nameless sacrifice will 
cease until it has worked out its own 
end and the birds are gone.” 
The destruction of the smaller birds 
for food is much greater than is com- 
monly supposed. It is due not so 
much to the demand created by 
native, white Americans as by the 
foreigners in the North and the ne- 
groes in the South. During the mi- 
grations to and from the Southern 
regions enormous numbers of birds 
which are commonly considered non- 
edible are killed for food. In the 
larger cities hundreds of such vic- 
tims are displayed in the markets 
daily. Besides the reed birds, robins, 
meadow-larks, and black-birds that 
one would naturally expect might be 
found, there occur wood-peckers, 
thrushes, sparrows, warblers, wax- 
wings, and vireos. 
An instructive example has been 
reported (Zoe, II, 142) by Mr. Wal- 
ter E. Bryant in the case of reed 
birds of the San Francisco markets. 
For years there have been exposed 
for sale small, Californian birds, 
picked, and six of them ranged side 
by side, with a skewer running 
through them. These are sold as 
reed birds, though of course they 
are not the Eastern bobolink which 
does not occur in California. Tliey^ 
are most commonly the horned lark 
(Otocoris), but there may often be 
found on the skewers house- finches, 
gold-finches, various sparrows (ex- 
cept the English variety), black- 
birds and sand-pipers. Many thous- 
ands of birds are thus destroyed an- 
nually; the tendency, as Mr. Bryant 
says, is steadily “to increase in se- 
verity, and it has long since arrived 
at that .stage of importance which 
should bring it to the notice of the 
