There are so many different ways in which you can study 
birds. Some people are only interested in them as game, 
either to kill or to eat. The markets contain an ever lessening 
supply of wild game, the laws are becoming more strict, the 
supply more scarce. I can remember very well how plentiful 
the quail were in my childhood, and now their sweet clear 
‘“‘bob-white” could be heard from almost any sunny field. 
And the passenger pigeons which darted over our heads with 
the swiftness of an arrow were no rara avis then, and we did not 
half value their beauty and grace as we should have done. 
They have been slaughtered by the million. In 1805, 
Audubon used to see schooners loaded with them lying in 
New York harbor. They sold for one cent apiece. In 1876, 
there was a great pigeon roost in Michigan four miles wide 
and 28 miles long. Hunters resorted to these woods in such 
crowds that it is estimated that one billion pigeons were 
killed in one season. Even the road which led to the woods 
was made smooth by filling the ruts with their dead bodies. 
Now the passenger pigeon is an extinct bird and the 
places ‘‘that knew it once shall know it no more forever.” 
State Street on a busy November afternoon shows us 
another view — not of bird life, certainly. Hats with plumes 
of terns, herons, birds of paradise, paroquets, gulls, pass by 
in an endless procession — a sight that contrasts so strongly 
with what the creatures are in life that a lover of birds has 
written these verses which I want to read to you. 
THE FALL MIGRATIONS 
Mary Drummond 
I 
A rush of wings through the darkening night, 
A sweep through the air in the distant height. 
Far off we hear them, cry answering cry; 
’Tis the voice of the birds as they Southward fly. 
From sea to sea, as if marking the time, 
Comes the beat of wings from the long, dark line. 
O strong, steady wing, with your rhythmic beat, 
Flying from cold to the summertime heat; 
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