The Birds of Missouri. 
Mr. Otto Widmann has recently published at 
St. Louis, Mo., his long hoped for preliminary 
catalogue of the birds of Missouri. It is the 
first attempt made at a complete list for that 
State. A number of small local lists have been 
published, but until now nothing covering the 
whole State. 
Mr. Widmann’s past work and writings have 
led ornithologists to believe that when the time 
came for publishing his list of Missouri birds, • 
it would be a valuable and useful contribution to 
ornithology. This hope is wholly justified by 
the present volume. 
In his introduction of about twenty pages the 
author deals with bibliography, explanations, 
faunal areas, climate and topography, with some 
remarks on the decrease of birds and bird pro¬ 
tection. Of the decrease of birds he says: 
“There is no doubt that the gun is the main 
factor in the rapid disappearance of all the larger 
birds. No amount of instruction and law-mak¬ 
ing will prevent the killing of hawks and owls 
by farmers and hunters, especially the latter, 
who sees in every large bird an enemy of his 
game, a competitor in the chase or fishery. 
“The reduction in the number of the smaller 
birds is the result of quite different causes— 
causes which cannot be removed because they 
are the unavoidable consequence of the trans¬ 
formation of a wild thinly-inhabited land into 
a highly cultivated thickly settled one. With 
the felling of trees, tree-inhabiting wild creatures 
necessarily disappear; with the draining of the 
lowlands, marsh birds cannot be expected any 
more; the drying up of the lakes divert their 
animal life to other regions; the removal of cer¬ 
tain plants from a place makes the presence of 
certain kinds of animal life impossible. When 
we consider how much one organism is depend¬ 
ent on others we do not wonder that an anni¬ 
hilation of many forms of animal life, high and 
low, is inseparably bound up with such a change 
as deforestation and subsequent cultivation. 
While we see a few birds, which formerly lived 
exclusively in the forest, accommodate them¬ 
selves to the changed conditions and put up with 
substitutes, such as orchards and artificial groves, 
many of the true forest-loving birds invariably 
disappear with the forests and become exter¬ 
minated as far as that particular locality is con¬ 
cerned. 
“Not counting the scrub oak barrens of the 
Ozarks as forests, because very few woodland 
birds find a home in them, we can say that only 
twenty-five per cent, of the former forest area 
is left as such at present, and that therefore 
seventy-five per cent, of most of the woodland 
birds of Missouri have gone since the white 
man began to settle in the State. But deforesta¬ 
tion is still going on on even a larger scale than 
ever before. There may come a time when for¬ 
esters will step in and take care of the remain¬ 
ing woodland, and men may even begin to plant 
new forests as they do in other countries, but 
such artificial groves compare with the primeval 
forests as does a cornfield with a marsh or 
prairie. Many birds now at home in the forest 
would find themselves perfect strangers in such 
a cultivated tract of tree growth. * * * Next 
to the vanishing of the woodland bird comes 
that of the marsh bird, whose doom is sealed 
by the draining of the lowland along our rivers 
and the transformation of lakes and swamp 
tracts into cornfields. These are no substitutes 
for sedges, reeds and flags, and the manifold 
vegetation associated with them, nor will the 
pond and lake dwellers return after their watery 
haunts have yielded to the plow and harrow. 
* * * Those species of birds which frequent 
the thicket along the edge of woods and the 
vegetation which fringes the water courses have 
a better chance to endure for a while, but these 
too will constantly be reduced in numbers by 
the adoption of the ideal clean culture which 
does away with all plant growth from fences 
and roads, and removes even the last rem¬ 
nants along the creeks and small wet weather 
branches.” 
The decrease of insectivorous and song birds 
is explained as the direct result of the advance 
of civilization, which changes the features of 
the land and introduces and propagates new 
enemies for the birds. The cat and dog destroy 
many of our most familiar birds, and especially 
those which nest upon the ground. The hog is 
very destructive to birds which build their nests 
on or near the ground, and in many Missouri 
localities ground nesting species have been en¬ 
tirely exterminated by hogs. In a different way 
cattle, horses and sheep destroy birds’ nests and, 
of course, the tilling or the burning over of the 
land at times when birds are nesting is very 
fatal. 
Bird protection is not merely the failure to 
kill birds. They must be fostered and encour¬ 
aged, and situations favorable to their undis¬ 
turbed breeding must be saved for them. The 
suggestion often made of setting aside tracts 
in each State, which shall be preserved in a 
natural condition, obviously ought to be gen¬ 
erally acted on. The good effects of such action 
have been shown in some of the States. 
We are accustomed to think of Missouri as 
a great game State, and so it used to be, but 
there as everywhere else the game has been 
much reduced. Ducks are abundant on the 
migration, but do not occur in anything like their 
old numbers. Many will learn with surprise 
that the old squaw is a regular visitant to the 
State between Nov. 20 and April 1. Old birds 
are always rare, but the young are sometimes 
common. The harlequin, too, is reported as a 
rare winter visitant. Between 1890 and 1900 a 
small number of Canada geese still bred in the 
Peninsula of Missouri, building their nests on 
cypress stumps in the overflow six or eight feet 
above the water. The natives hunted for the 
eggs and young, and flocks of half domesticated 
wild geese were common in Pemiscot and Dunk¬ 
lin counties. 
In contrast with the Northern birds cited a 
few lines above, the fulvous tree duck of the 
South has been taken in Missouri, as 
Forest and Stream in 1891. 
The ruffed grouse, formerly very abundant in 
most of the wooded parts of Missouri, is now 
regarded as rare, though they are still occasion¬ 
ally killed. In connection with the much com¬ 
plained of scarcity of grouse in more northern 
localities during the past shooting season, the 
following quotation is of interest: 
“Some think the reason why ruffed grouse 
are not more plentiful in the Ozarks and why 
they have entirely disappeared from localities 
where they were not molested by man is to be 
found in the terrible increase and spread of the 
chigger (Trombidium'). That the chigger, car¬ 
ried from place to place by pasturing animals, is 
steadily increasing and alarmingly spreading to 
regions not visited • before is a well known fact 
nearly throughout Missouri, and since enemies 
may determine the breeding range of an animal 
as well as food and other conditions, I give it 
as a not impossible theory.” 
The prairie chicken, once abundant, is now 
becoming rare and the wild turkey is scarce. 
They are all gone from northern Missouri, but 
are still found in small numbers in most parts 
of the Ozarks and in swamps to the southeast. 
An interesting list of references of occurrences 
of the passenger pigeon from 1833 to 1902 is 
given. September 26 in that year seems to have 
been the last observation. 
Mr. Widmann’s notes on the 353 species and 
subspecies actually observed for the State are 
full and interesting, and the volume is one which 
ought to be in the library of every ornithologist. 
It is a distinct contribution to our knowledge. 
• * ■ I 
Wolves Kill a Fox. 
Wymore, Neb., Jan. 23.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Mr. S. O. Smith, who lives on a farm 
five miles north of Wymore, came to town this 
afternoon bringing with him the dead body ol 
a red fox which was viewed by many as a great 
curiosity, as a fox has not been seen in this 
county for twenty years to my knowledge. 
The strange part of the story is that Mr. Smitl 
was in his field loading straw, and got upon the 
wagon to tramp the straw down, when he hearc 
a great noise as of animals running across In¬ 
field through the corn stalks, and in a momen 
the fox came out of the cornfield and ran acrosi 
his field of fall wheat, closely pursued by twc 
gray wolves which caught and killed the fox 11 
plain sight within forty rods of him. He spranf 
from his wagon and started for the conflict a 
fast as possible. When the wolves saw him the; 
left the fox and ran for the timber along th< 
river a short distance away, and when he ar 
rived at the fox it was dead. Its throat wa 
badly torn, and its breast crushed in and man 
gled. 
This is the first instance I have ever knowi 
of wolves killing a fox. Perhaps other reader 
of Forest and Stream have known of it. Mi 
Smith is a reliable farmer, well known in thi 
county. A. D. McCandless. 
