 CHAPTER VIII. The Unseen Foes of Wildlife Quite unintentionally on his part, man, the arch destroyer, and the most predatory and merciless of all animal species except the wolves, has rendered a great service to all the birds that live or nest upon the ground. His relentless pursuit and destruction of the savage temper, strong-jawed, fur-bearing animals, is in part the salvation of the ground birds of today and yesterday. If the teeth and claws had been permitted to multiply unchecked down to the present time, with man's warfare on the upland game-proceeding as it has done, scores upon scores of species long ere this would have been exterminated. But the slaughter of the millions of North American foxes, wolves, weasels, skunks, and mink, has so overwhelmingly reduced the forefooted enemies of the birds that the balance of wild nature has been preserved. As a rule, the few predatory wild animals that remain are not slaughtering the birds through a serious extent, and for this we may well be thankful. The Domestic Cat In such thickly settled communities as our northern states, from the Atlantic coast to the sandhills of Kansas and Nebraska, the domestic cat is probably the greatest forefooted scourge of bird life. Thousands of persons who have never seen a hunting cat in action will doubt this statement, but the proof of its truthfulness is only too painfully abundant. Unhappily it is the way of the hunting cat to stalk unseen, and to kill the very birds that are most friendly with man, and most helpful to him in his farming and fruit-growing business. The quail is about the only game bird that the cat affects seriously, and to it the cat is very destructive. It is the robin, cat bird, thrush, bluebird, dove, woodpecker, chickadee, Phoebe, tenager, and other birds of the lawn, the garden, and orchard that afford good hunting for sly and savage old Thomas. When I was a boy in my teens, I had a lasting series of object lessons on the cat as a predatory animal. Our Betty was the most ambitious and successful domestic cat hunter of wild mammals, of which I have ever heard. To her rats and mice were mere child's play, and after a time their pursuit afforded such tame sport that she sought fresh fields for her prowess. Then she brought in young rabbits, chipmunks, and thirteen-lined spermophiles, and when she came in, quite exhausted, half-dragging and half-carrying, a big, fat pocket-gopher. With her it seemed to be a point of honor that she should bring in her game and display it. Little did we realize then that in course of time the wild birds would become so scarce that their slaughter by house cats would demand legislative action in the States. In considering the hunting cat, let us call on a credible witness of the effects of domestic cats on the bobwhite. The following is an eyewitness report by Ernest B. Beardsley in Outdoor Life for April 1912. The locality was Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas. In the meantime old Queen was having a high old time up ahead, some hundred feet by then, running up the bank and back down in the draw. We had hardly caught up when up goes Mr. Savage's gun and he gives both barrels. I had seen nothing up to date, but I didn't have long to wait. For by the time I got up to him and the dog, they were both in the high grass and had a great big, common gray, maltese house cat, and Queen had a half-eaten quail that Mr. Cat was busy with when disturbed. Well, we followed the draw across the field and got nine of a cubby of sixteen that had been ahead of Mr. Cat. At about four o'clock that evening, we killed another white and gray cat. While driving home that night, Mr. Savage told me that he had killed fifty or more in three or four years. They were getting a draw full of tumblegrass on a cold day when quail don't like to fly and stay right with them. And even after feeding on two or three, they will lie and watch and when the cubby moves, they move. When eating time comes around, they are ended again and to a cubby of young birds, they are sure death to the whole cubby. Well, Will told me never to overlook a house cat that I found as far as a quarter of a mile from a farmer ranch. For if they have not already turned wild, they are learning how easy it is to hunt and live on game and are almost as bad. We found Mr. Black and White Hunter had eaten two quail just before we killed him that evening. I would rather not write what Mr. Savage said when we found the remains of a partly eaten bird. My advice is, don't let tame cats get away when found out hunting. For the chances are they have not seen a home in months and maybe years and say, but they do get big and bad. When you meet one, give it to him good and don't let your dog run up to him until he is out for keeps. I learned afterwards that was how Will knew it was a cat. Queen had learned to back off and call for help on cats some years before. In the New York Zoological Park, we have had troubles of our own with marauding cats. They established themselves in a day and quickly learned where to seek easy game and good cover. In the daytime they lie close in the thick brush, exactly as tigers do in India. But if not molested for a period of days, they become bold and attack game in open view. One bird killing cat was so shy of man that it was only after two weeks of hard hunting, mornings and evenings, that it was killed. We have seen cats catch and kill gray squirrels, chipmunks, robins and thrushes and have found the feathers of slaughtered quail. Once we had gray rabbits breeding in the park and their number reached between 80 and 90. For a time they fearlessly hopped about in sight from our windows and they were of great interest to visitors and to all of us. Then the cats began upon them and in one year there was not a rabbit to be seen, save at rare intervals. At the same time the chipmunks of the park were almost exterminated. That was the last straw and we began a vigorous war upon those wild and predatory cats. The cats came off second best. We killed every cat that was found hunting in the park and we certainly got some that were big and bad. We eliminated that pest and we are keeping it eliminated. And with what result? In 1911 a covey of 11 quail came and settled in our grounds and have remained there. Twenty times at least during the past eight months, winter and spring, I've seen the flock on the granite ledge not more than 40 feet from the rear window of my office. Last spring when I left the administration building at six o'clock after the visitors had gone I found two half-grown rabbits calmly roosting on the doormat. The rabbits are slowly coming back and the chipmunks are visibly increasing in number. The gray squirrels now chase over the walks without fear of any living thing and our ducklings and young guineas and peacocks are safe once more. The cats destroy annually in the United States. Several millions of very valuable birds seems fairly beyond question. I believe that in settled regions they are worse than weasels, foxes, skunks, and minks combined because there are about one hundred times as many of them and those that hunt are not afraid to hunt in the daytime. Of course I'm not saying that all cats hunt wild game but in the country I believe that fully one half of them do. I am personally acquainted with a cat in Indiana on the farm of relatives which is notorious for his hunting propincities and its remarkable ability in capturing game. Even the lady who is joint owner of the cat feels very badly about its destructiveness and has said over and over again that it ought to be killed but the cat is such a family pet that no one in the family has the heart to destroy it and as yet no strangers come forward to play the part of executioner. The lady in question assured me that to her certain knowledge that particular cat would watch a nest full of young robins week after week until they had grown up to such a size that they were almost ready to fly then he would kill them and devour them. Old Tommy was too wise to kill the robins when they were unduly small. In a great book entitled Useful Birds and Their Protection by E. H. Forbrush, state or anthologist of Massachusetts and published by the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture in 1905, there appears on page 362 many interesting facts on this subject. For example, Mr. William Brewster tells of an acquaintance in Maine who said that his cat killed about 50 birds a year. Mr. A. C. Dyke wrote to Mr. Forbush of a cat owned by a family and well cared for. They watched it through one season and found that it killed 58 birds including the young and five nests. Nearly 100 correspondence scattered through all the counties of the state report the cat as one of the greatest enemies of birds. The reports that have come in of the torturing and killing of birds by cats are absolutely sickening. The number of birds killed by them in this state is appalling. Some cat lovers believe that each cat kills on the average not more than 10 birds a year. But I have learned of two instances where more than that number were killed in a single day and another where seven were killed. If we assume however that the average cat on the farm kills but 10 birds a year and that there is one cat to each farm in Massachusetts we have in round numbers 70,000 cats killing 700,000 birds annually. In Mr. Forbush's book there is an illustration of the cat which killed 58 birds in one year and the animal was photographed with a dead robin in its mouth. The portrait is reproduced in this chapter. Last year a strong effort was made in Massachusetts to enact a law requiring cats to be licensed. On account of the amount of work necessary in passing the no sale of game bill that measure was not pressed and so did not become a law. But another year it will undoubtedly be passed for it is a good bill and extremely necessary at this time. Such a law is needed in every state. There is a mark by which you may instantly and infallibly know the worst of the wild cats by their presence away from home hunting in the open. Kill all such wherever found. The harmless cats are domestic in their tastes and stay close to the family fireside and the kitchen. Being properly fed they have no temptation to become hunters. There are cats and cats just as there are men and men. Some tolerable many utterly intolerable. No sweeping sentiment for all cats should be allowed to stand in the way of the abatement of the hunting cat nuptances. Of all men the farmer cannot afford the luxury of their existence. It is too expensive. With him is a matter of dollars and cash out of pocket for every hunting cat that he tolerates in his neighborhood. There are two places in which to strike the hunting cats in the open and in the state legislature. While this chapter was in the hands of the compositors the hunting cat and gray rabbit shown in the accompanying illustration were brought in by a keeper. The caption shows a hunting cat and its victim. This cat had fed so bountifully on the rabbits and squirrels of the zoological park that it ate only the brain of this gray rabbit. Dogs is destroyers of birds. I've received many letters from protectors of wildlife informing me that the destruction of ground nesting birds and especially of upland game birds by roaming dogs has in some localities become a great curse to bird life. Complaints of this kind have come from New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Usually the culprits are hunting dogs, setters, pointers and hounds. Now surely it is not necessary to set forth here any argument on this subject. It is not open to argument or academic treatment of any kind. The cold fact is in the breeding season of birds. And while the young birds are incapable of quick and strong flight, all dogs of every description should be restrained from free hunting. And all dogs found hunting in the woods during the season referred to should be arrested. And their owners should be fined $20 for each offense. Incidentally, one half the fine should go to the citizen who arrests the dog. The method of restraining hunting dogs should devolve upon dog owners, and the law need only prohibit or punish the act. Beyond a doubt, in states that still possess quail and roughed grouse, free hunting by hunting dogs leads to great destruction of nests and broods during the breeding season. Telegraph and telephone wires. Mr. Daniel C. Beard has strongly called my attention to the slaughter of birds by telegraph wires that has come under his personal observation. His country home at Reading, Connecticut is near the main line of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railway. Along which a line of very large poles carries a great number of wires. The wires are so numerous that they form a barrier through which it is difficult for any bird to fly and come out alive and unhurt. Mr. Beard says that among the birds killed or crippled by flying against those wires near Reading, he has seen the following species. Oliveback Thrush, Whitethroated Sparrow, and other sparrows, Oriole, Blue Jay, Rail, Ruffed Grouse, and Woodcock. It is a common practice for employees of the railway and others living along the line to follow the line and pick up on one excursion enough birds for a pot pie. Beyond question, the telegraph and telephone wires of the United States annually exact a heavy toll in bird life and claim countless thousands of victims. They may well be set down as one of the unseen forces destructive to birds. Naturally we ask, what can be done about it? I am told that in Scotland such slaughter is prevented by the attachment of small tags or discs to the telephone wires and intervals of a few broads sufficiently near that they attract the attention of flying birds and reveal the line of an obstruction. This system should be adopted in all regions where the conditions are such that birds kill themselves against telegraph wires and an excellent place to begin would be along the line of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railway. Wild animals. Beyond question it is both desirable and necessary that any excess of wild animals that prey upon our grouse, quail, pheasants, woodcock, snipe, mallard duck, shorebirds, and other species that nest on the ground should be killed. Since we must choose between the two the birds have it. Weasels and foxes and skunks are interesting and they do much to promote the hilarity of life in rural districts but they do not destroy insects and are of comparatively little value as destroyers of the noxious rodents that prey upon farm crops. While a few persons may dispute the second half of this proposition the burden of proof that my view is wrong will rest upon them and having spent 18 years on the farm I think I'm right. If there is any positive evidence tending to prove that the small carnivores that we class as vermin are industrious and persistent destroyers of noxious rodents, pocket gophers, moles, field mice, and rats or that they do not kill wild birds numerously now is the time to produce it because the tide of public sentiment is strongly setting against the weasels, mink, foxes, and skunks. Once upon a time a shrewd young man in the zoological park discovered a weasel hiding behind a stone while devouring a sparrow that it had just caught and killed. He stalked it successfully, seized it in his bare hand and even though bitten made good the capture. The state of Pennsylvania is extensively wooded with forests and with brush which affords excellent home quarters and breeding grounds for mammalian vermin. The small predatory mammals are so seriously destructive to roughed grouse and other ground birds that the state game commission is greatly concerned. When the hunter's license law is enacted as it very surely will be in the next session of the legislature in 1913 a portion of the seventy thousand dollars that it will produce each year will be used by the commission in paying bounties on the destruction of the surplus of vermin. Through the pursuit of vermin any farmer can easily win enough bounties to more than pay the cost of his annual honey license one dollar and the farmer's boys will find a new interest in life. At this point there's an illustration captioned the eastern red squirrel a great destroyer of birds. In some portions of the Rocky Mountains region the assaults of the large predatory mammals and birds on the young of the big game species occasionally demand special treatment. In the Yellowstone Park the pumas will multiply to such an extent and killed so many young elk that their number had to be systematically reduced. To that end Buffalo Jones was sent out by the government to find and destroy the intolerable surplus of pumas. In the course of his campaign he killed about 40 much to the benefit of the elk herds. Around the entrance to the den of a big old male puma Mr. Jones found the skulls and other remains of nine elk calves that the old Tom had killed and carried there. Pumas and lynxes attack and kill mountain sheep and the golden eagle is very partial to mountain sheep lambs and mountain goat kids. It will not answer to permit birds of that bold and predatory species to become too numerous in mountains inhabited by goats and sheep and the fewer the mountain lions the better for they like the lynx and eagle have nothing to live upon save the game. The wolves and coyotes have learned to seek the ranges of cattle horses and sheep where they still do immense damage chiefly in killing young stonk. In spite of the great sums that have been paid out by western states and bounties for the destruction of wolves in many many places the gray wolf still persists and cannot be exterminated. To the stockman of the west the wolf question is a serious matter. The stockman of Montana say that a government expert once told them how to get rid of the gray wolves. His instructions were locate the dens and kill the young in the dens soon after they're born. All very easy to say but a trifle difficult to do says by informant and the ranchmen seem to think that they are long way yet from a solution to the wolf question. During the past year the destruction of noxious predatory animals in the national forest preserves has seriously occupied the attention of the United States Bureau of Forestry. By the foresters of that bureau the following animals were destroyed in 15 western states. 213 bears. 88 mountain lions. 172 gray wolves. 69 wolf pups. 6487 coyotes. 870 wild cats. 72 lynxes. For a total of 7,971 animals destroyed. In 1910 the total was 9,103. The Red Squirrel. Once in a great while conditions change in subtle ways. Wild creatures unexpectedly increase in number and a community awakens to the fact that some wild species has become a public nuisance. In a small city park even gray squirrels may breed and become so fearfully numerous that in their restless quest for food they may ravage the nests of the wild birds, kill and devour the young and become a pest. In the zoological park in 1903 we found that the Red Squirrels had increased as such a horde that they were driving out all our nesting wild birds, driving out the gray squirrels and making themselves intolerably obnoxious. We shot 60 of them and brought the total down to a reasonable number. Wherever he is or whatever his numerical strength the Red Squirrel is a bad citizen and while we do not by any means favor his extermination he should resolutely be kept within bounds by the rifle. When a crow nested in our woods near the beaver pond we were greatly pleased but with the feeding of the first brood the crows began to carry off ducklings from the wildfowl pond. After one crow had been seen to seize and carry away five young ducks in one forenoon we decided that the constitutional limit had been reached for we did not propose that all our young mallards should be swept into the awful vortex of that crow nest. We took those young crows and reared them by hand but the old one had acquired a bad habit and she persisted in carrying off young ducks until we had to enter existence with a gun. It was a painful operation but there was no other way. Bird destroying birds. There are several species of birds that may at once be put under sentence of death for the destructiveness of useful birds without any extenuating circumstances worth mentioning. Four of these are Cooper's Hawk, the Sharp Shind Hawk, Pigeon Hawk, and Duck Hawk. Fortunately these species are not so numerous that we need lose any sleep over them. Indeed I think that today it would be a mighty good collector who could find one specimen in seven days hunting. Like all other species these two are being shot out of our bird fauna. Several species of bird eating birds are trembling in the balance and their grave suspicion. Some of them are the great horned owl, screech owl, butcher bird, or great northern shrike. The only circumstance that saves these birds from instant condemnation is the delightful amount of rats, mice, moles, gophers, and noxious insects that they annually consume. In view of the awful destructiveness of the accursed bubonic plague carrying rat we are impelled to think long before placing in our killing list even the great horned owl who really does levy a heavy tax on our upland game birds. As to the butcher bird we feel that we ought to kill him but in view of his record on wild mice and rats we hesitate and finally decline. There is now an illustration captioned Cooper's Hawk, a species to be destroyed. Snakes. Mr. Thomas M. Up, a close and long observer of wild things, wishes it distinctly understood that while the common black snakes and racers are practically harmless to birds, the pilot black snake, long, thick, and treculant, is a great scourge to nesting birds. It seems to be deserving of death. Mr. Umberman, a species to be destroyed. Snakes. Mr. Thomas M. Up, a close and long observer of wild things, deserving of death. Mr. Up speaks from personal knowledge and his condemnation of the species referred to is quite sweeping. At the same time Mr. Raymond L. Ditmars points out the fact that this serpent feeds during six months of the year on mice and in doing so renders good service. In the south it is called the mouse snake. At this point is an illustration captioned photo by A. C. Dyke, the cat that killed fifty-eight birds in one year from Mr. Forbish's book. End of Chapter 8. Recording by Kelly Doherty of Plano, Texas, October 29, 2007. Chapter 9 of Our Vanishing Wildlife This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Every cause that has the effect of reducing the total of wildlife population is now a matter of importance to mankind. The violent and universal disturbance of the balance of nature that has already taken place throughout the temperate and frigid zone offers not only food for thought, but it calls for vigorous action. There are vast sections in the populous centers of western civilization where the destruction of species even to the point of extermination is fairly inevitable. It is the way of Christian man to destroy all wildlife that comes within the sphere of influence of his iron heel. With the exception of the big game, this destruction is largely a temperamental result, peculiar to the highest civilization. In India, where the same fields have been plowed for wheat and dal and ragi for at least two thousand years, the Indian antelope or black buck, the saris crane, and the adjutant stalk through the crops, and the nilgai and gazelle inhabit the eroded ravines in an agricultural land that averages 1200 people to the square mile. We have seen that even in farming country where mud villages are as thick as farmhouses in Nebraska, wild animals and even hoofed game can live and hold their own through hundreds of years of close association with man. The explanation is that the Hindus regard wild animals as creatures entitled to life liberty in the pursuit of happiness, and they are not anxious to shoot every wild animal that shows its head. In the United States, nearly every game inhabited community is animated by a feeling that every wild animal must necessarily be killed as soon as seen, and this sentiment often leads to disgraceful things. For instance, in some parts of New England, a deer straying into a town is at once beset by the hue and cry, and it is chased and assaulted until it is dead by violent and disgraceful means. New York State, however, seems to have outgrown that spirit. During the past ten years at least a dozen deer in distress have been rescued from the Hudson River or in inland towns or in barnyards in the suburbs of Yonkers in New York, and carefully cared for until the zoo people could be communicated with. Last winter about thirteen exhausted Grebys and one loon were picked up, cared for, and finally shipped with tender care to the zoological park. One distressed dove-key was picked up, but failed to survive. The sentiment for the conservation of wildlife has changed the mental attitude of very many people. The old Chinese melee spirit which cries kill, kill, and at once runs amuck among suddenly discovered wild animals is slowly being replaced by a more humane and intelligent sentiment. This is one of the hopeful and encouraging signs of the times. The destruction of wild animals by natural causes is an interesting subject, even though painful. We need to know how much destruction is wrought by influences wholly beyond the control of man, and a few cases must be cited. Rindrupest in Africa. Probably the greatest slaughter ever wrought upon wild animals by diseases during historic times was by Rindrupest, a cattle plague which afflicted Africa in the last decade of the previous century. Originally the disease reached Africa by way of Egypt and came as an importation from Europe. From Egypt it steadily traveled southward, reaching Somalaland in 1889. In 1896 it reached the Zambezi River and entered Rhodesia. From thence it went on southward almost to the Cape. Not only did it sweep away 90% of the native cattle, but it also destroyed more than 75% of the buffaloes, antelopes, and other hoofed game of Rhodesia. It was feared that many species would be completely exterminated, but happily that fear was not realized. The buffalo and antelope herds were fifteen years in breeding up again to a reasonable number, but thanks to the respite from hunters which they enjoyed for several years, finally they did recover. Throughout British East Africa the supply of big game in 1905 was very great, but since that time it has been very greatly diminished by shooting. Caribou disease. From time to time reports have come from the province of Quebec, and I think from Maine and New Brunswick also, of many caribou having died of disease. The nature of that disease has remained a mystery, because it seems that no pathologist ever has had an opportunity to investigate it. Fortunately, however, the alleged disease never has been sufficiently widespread or continuous to make appreciable inroads on the total number of caribou, and apparently the trouble has been local. Scab in Mountain Sheep. Scab is a contagious and persistent skin disease that affects sheep, and is destructive when not controlled. Fifteen years ago it prevailed in some portions of the West. In Colorado it has several times been reported that many bighorn mountain sheep were killed by scab, which was contracted on wild mountain pastures that had been gone over by domestic sheep carrying that disease. From the report's current at that time we inferred that about two hundred mountain sheep had become affected. It was feared that the disease would spread through the wild flocks and become general, but this did not occur. It seems that the remnant flocks had become so isolated from one another that the isolation of the affected flocks saved the others. Lumpy Jaw in Antelope and Sheep. It is a lamentable fact that some, at least of the United States herds of pronghorned antelope are afflicted with a very deadly chronic infective disease known as actinomycosis or lumpy jaw. It has been brought into the zoological park five times by specimens shipped from Colorado, Texas, Wyoming, and Montana. I think our first cases came to us in 1902. In its early stage this disease is so subtle and slow that it is months in developing and this feature renders it all the more deadly through the spread of infection long before the ailment can be discovered. One of our antelope arrivals apparently in perfect health when received was on general principles kept isolated in rigid quarantine for two months. At the expiration of that period no disease of any kind having become manifest, the animal was placed on exhibition with two others that had been in the park for more than a year in perfect health. In one more week the late arrival developed a swelling on its jaw, drooled at the corner of the mouth, and became feverish, sure symptoms of the dread disease. At once it was removed and isolated, but in about ten days it died. The other two antelopes were promptly attacked and eventually died. The course of the disease is very intense and thus far it has proven incurable in our wild animals. We have lost about ten antelopes from it and one deer, usually in each case, within ten days or two weeks from the discovery of the first outward sign, the well-known swelling on the jaw. One case that was detected immediately upon arrival was very persistently treated by Dr. Blair, and the animal actually survived for four months, but finally it succumbed. From first to last not a single case was cured. In 1912 the future of the pronghorned antelope in real captivity seems hopeless. We have decided not to bring any more specimens to our institution, partly because all available candidates seem reasonably certain to be affected with lumpy jaw and partly because we are unwilling to run further risks of having other huffed animals inoculated by them. Today we are anxiously wondering whether the jaw disease of the pronghorn is destined to exterminate the species. Such a catastrophe is much to be feared. This is probably one of the reasons why the antelope is steadily disappearing despite protection. In 1906 we discovered the existence of Actinomycosis among the Black Mountain sheep of Northern British Columbia. Two specimens out of six were badly affected, the bones of the jaws being greatly enlarged and perforated by deep pits. The black sheet of the stickine and iskute regions are so seldom seen by white men, save when a sportsman kills his allotment of three specimens. We really do not know anything about the extent to which Actinomycosis prevails in these herds, or how deadly are its effects. One thing seems quite certain, from the appearance of the disease skulls found by the rider in the taxidermic laboratory of Frederick Sorter in New York. The enormous swelling of the disease jaw bones clearly indicates a disease that in some cases affects its victim throughout many months. Such a condition as we found in those sheep could not have been reached in a few days after the disease became apparent. Now in our antelopes, the collapse and death of the victim usually occurred within about ten days from the time that the first swelling was observed, which means a very virulent disease and rapid progress at the climax. The jaw of one of our antelopes, which was figured in Dr. Blair's paper in the eleventh annual report of the New York Zoological Society, 1906, shows only a very slight lesion in comparison with those of the mountain sheep. The conclusion is that among the sheep, this disease does not carry off its victims in any short period like ten days. The animal must survive for some months after it becomes apparent. At least two parties of American sportsmen have shot rams afflicted with this disease, but I have no reports of any sheep having been found dead from this cause. This disease is well known among domestic cattle, but so far as we are aware it never before has been found among wild animals. The black sheep herds wherein it was found in British Columbia are absolutely isolated from domestic cattle and all their influences, and therefore it seems quite certain that the disease developed among the sheep spontaneously. A remarkable episode to say the least. Whether it will exterminate the black mountain sheep species and in time spread to the white sheep of the northwest is of course a matter of conjecture, but there is nothing in the world to prevent a calamity of that kind. The white sheep of Yukon Territory range southward until in the Sheeslay Mountains they touch the sphere of influence of the black sheep where the disease could easily be transmitted. It would be a good thing if there existed between the two species a sheepless zone about 200 miles wide. I greatly fear that Actinomycosis is destined to play an important part in the final extinction that seems to be the impending fate of the beautiful and valuable pronghorned antelope. In view of our hard experiences extending through 10 years, 1902 to 1912, I think this fear is justified. All persons who live in country still inhabited by antelope are urged to watch for this disease. If any antelopes are found dead, see if the lower jaw is badly swollen and discharging pus. If it is, bury the body quickly, burn the ground over, and advise the rider regarding the case. The Rabbit Plague One of the strangest freaks of nature of which we know as affecting the wholesale destruction of wild animals by disease is the Rabbit Plague. In the northern wilderness, and particularly central Canada, where rabbits exist in great numbers and supply the wants of a large carnivorous population, this plague is well known, and among trappers and woodsmen it is a common topic of conversation. The best treatment of the subject is to be found in Ernest T. Seaton's Life Histories of Northern Animals, volume 1, page 640 at seek. From this, I quote, Invariably the year of greatest numbers of rabbits is followed by a year of plague, which sweeps them away, leaving few or no rabbits in the land. The denser the rabbit population, the more drastically it is ravaged by the plague. They are wiped out in a single spring by epidemic diseases, usually characterized by swellings of the throat, sores under the armpits and groins, and by diarrhea. The year 1885 was for the country around Carberry, a rabbit year, the greatest ever known in that country. The number of rabbits was incredible. W. R. Hein killed 75 in two hours, and estimated that he could have killed 500 in a day. The farmers were stricken with fear that the rabbit pest of Australia was to be repeated in Manitoba, but the years 1886 and 7 changed all that. The rabbits died until their bodies dotted the country in thousands. The plague seemed to kill all the members of the vast host of 1885. The strangest item of Mr. Seaton's story is yet to be told. In 1890, Mr. Seaton stocked his park at Cos Cobb, Connecticut, with hairs and rabbits from several widely separated localities. In 1903, the plague came and swept them all away. Mr. Seaton sent specimens to the zoological park for examination by the park veterinary surgeon, Dr. W. Reed Blair. They were found to be infested by great numbers of a dangerous blood-sucking parasite known as strungalis strogosis, which produces death by anemia and emaciation. There were thousands of those parasites in each animal. I assisted in the examination and was shown by Dr. Blair under the microscope that strungalis puts forth eggs literally by hundreds of thousands. The life history of that parasite is not well known, but it may easily develop that the cycle of its maximum destructiveness is seven years, and therefore it may be accountable for the seven-year plague among the hairs and rabbits of the northern United States and Canada. Possibly strungalis strogosis is all that stands between Canada and a pest of rabbits like that of Australia. Just why this parasite is inoperative in Australia or why it has not been introduced there to lessen the rabbit evil we do not know. Mr. Seaton declares that the rabbits of his park were subject to all the ills of the flesh, except possibly writer's paralysis and housemaid's knee. Parasitic Infection of Wild Ducks The diseases of wild game, especially waterfowl, grouse, and quail, have caused heavy losses in America as well as in European countries, and scientists have been carefully investigating the cause and the general nature of the maladies, as well as probable methods of prevention and cure. Mr. George Atkinson, a well-known practical naturalist of Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, writes as follows to a local paper on this subject, which I find quoted in the National Sportsman. The question which has developed these important proportions during the past year is that of the extent of the parasitic infection of our wild ducks and other game, and the possibilities of the extended transmission of these parasites to domestic stock or even humanity by eating. The parasites in question are contained in small elliptical cases found underlying the surface muscles of the breast, and in advanced cases extending deeper into the flesh and the muscular tissues of the legs and wings. They are not noticeable in the ordinary process of plucking the bird for the table and are not found internally, so that the only method of discovering their presence is by slitting the skin of the breast and pairing it back a few inches when the worm-like sacks will be seen buried in the flesh. These parasites have come to my notice periodically during the process of skinning birds for mounting during the past number of years, but it was only when they appeared in unusual numbers last fall that I made inquiries of the biological bureaus of Washington and Ottawa for information of their life history and the possibilities of their transmission to other hosts. Replies from these sources surprised me with the information that very little was known of the life history of any of the sarcosperidia of which group this was a species. Nothing was known of the method of infection or the transference from host to host or species to species, and both departments asked for specimens for examination. Authorities are a unit in opinion that the question is one of great importance to game conservation, and although opinions of the dangers from eating differ somewhat, a record is given of a hog-fed upon-affected flesh developing parasites in the muscles in six weeks time, while a case of a man's death from dropsy was found to be the result of development of these parasites in the valves of the heart. The ability of these low forms of life to withstand extremes of heat makes it necessary for more than ordinary cooking to be assured of killing them, and since their presence is unnoted in the ordinary course of dressing the birds for the table, there is little doubt that very considerable numbers of these parasites are consumed at our tables every season, with results at present unknown to us. The species I have found most particularly infected have been mallards, shovelers, teal, gadwall, and pintails, and the birds outwardly in the best condition have frequently been found loaded with sacks of these parasites, and only the turning back of the breast skin can disclose their presence. The greatest slaughter of wild ducks by disease occurred on Great Salt Lake, Utah. Until the duck disease, intestinal coxidiosis broke out there in the summer of 1910, the annual market slaughter of ducks at the mouth of Bear River had been enormous. When at Salt Lake City in 1888, I made an effort to arouse the sportsman whom I met to the necessity of a reform, but my exhortations fell on deaf ears. Naturally the sweeping away of the remaining ducks by disease would suggest a heaven-sent judgment upon the slaughterers, were it not for the fact that the last state of the unfortunate ducks is, if anything, worse than the first. On October 17, 1911, the annual report of the Chief of the Biological Survey contained the following information on this subject. Epidemic Among Wild Ducks on Great Salt Lake Following a long dry season which favored the rearing of a large number of wild ducks but materially reduced the area of the feeding ponds, resulting in great overcrowding, a severe epidemic broke out about August 1, 1910, among the wild ducks about Great Salt Lake, Utah. Dead ducks could be counted by thousands along the shores, and the disease raged unabated until late fall. Shooting clubs found it necessary to declare a closed season. Some of the dead ducks were forwarded to the Biological Survey and were turned over for examination to the Bureau of Animal Industry by the experts of which the disease was diagnosed as intestinal coxidiosis. Various plans of relieving the situation were tried. The irrigation ditches were closed, thus providing the sloths and ponds with fresh water, and lime was sprinkled on the mud flats and duck trails. Great improvement followed this treatment, and experiments proved that ducks provided with abundant fresh water and clean food began to recover immediately. These methods promised success, but later it was proposed that the marshes be drained and exposed to the sun's rays, a course which cannot be recommended. That coxidia are not always killed by exposure to the sun is shown by their survival on the sites of old chicken yards. An added disadvantage of the plan is that draining and drying the marshes would have a bad effect on the natural duck food and upon the birds themselves. Chapter 10 Destruction of Wildlife by the Elements It is a fixed condition of nature that whenever and wherever a wild species exists in a state of nature, free from the trammels and limitations that contact with man always imposes, the species is fitted to survive all ordinary climactic influences. Freedom of action and the exercise of several options in the line of individual maintenance under stress is essential to the welfare of every wild species. A prong-horned antelope herd that is free can drift before a blizzard, can keep from freezing by exercise, and eventually come to shelter. Let that same herd drift against a barbed-wired fence five miles long, and its whole scheme of self-preservation is upset. The herd perishes then and there. Cut out the undergrowth of a given section, drain the swamps and mow down all the weeds and tall grass, and the next particularly hard winter starves and freezes the quail. Naturally the cutting of forests, clearing of brush, and drainage of marshes is more or less calamitous to all the species of birds that inhabit such places, and find there winter food and shelter. Red-winged blackbirds and real estate booms cannot inhabit the same swamps contemporaneously. Before the relentless march of civilization the wild Indian, the bison, and many of the wild birds must inevitably disappear. We cannot change conditions that are as inexorable as death itself. The wildlife must either adjust itself to the conditions that civilized man imposes upon it, or perish. I say civilized man, for the reason that the primitive races of man are not deadly exterminators of species as we are. I know of not one species of wildlife that has been exterminated by savage man without the aid of his civilized peers. As civilization marches ever onward over the prairies, into the badlands, and the forests, over the mountains, and even into the farthest corner of Death Valley, the desert of deserts, the struggle of the wild birds, mammals, and fishes is daily and hourly intensified, man must help them to maintain themselves or accept a lifeless continent. The best help consists in letting the wild creatures thoroughly alone so that they can help themselves. But quail often need to be fed in critical periods. The best food is wheat screenings placed under little tents of straw bringing food and shelter together. In the well-settled portions of the United States, such species as quail, roughed grouse, wild turkey, pinnaded grouse, and sage grouse hang to life by slender threads. A winter of exceptionally deep snows, much sleet, and a late spring always causes grave anxiety among the state game wardens. In Pennsylvania, a very earnest movement is in progress to educate and persuade farmers to feed the quail in winter, and much good is being done in that direction. Mr. Erasmus Wilson of the Pittsburgh Gazette Times is the apostle of that movement. Quail should be fed every winter in every northern state. The methods to be pursued will be mentioned elsewhere. By way of illustration, here is a sample game report from Los Animas, Colorado, February 22, 1912. After the most severe winter weather experienced for 20 years, we are able to compute approximately our loss of feathered life. It is 75% of the quail throughout the irrigated district and about 20% of metal arcs. In the rough cedar-covered section south of the Arkansas River, the loss among the quail was much lighter. The ground sparrows suffered severely, while the English sparrow seems to have come through it in good shape. Many cottontail rabbits starved to death, while the deep light snow of January made them easy prey for hawks and coyotes. F. T. Weber. It would be possible to record many instances similar to the above, but why multiply them, and now be called the cruel corollary. At least 25 times during the past two years, I have heard and read arguments by sportsmen against my proposal for a five-year closed season for quail, taking the ground that the sportsmen are not wholly to blame for the scarcity of quail. It is the cold winters that kill them off. So then, because the fierce winters murder the Bob White wholesale, they should not have a chance to recover themselves? Could human beings possibly assume a more absurd attitude? Yes, it is coldly an incontestably true that even after such winter slaughter as Mr. Weber has reported above, the very next season will find the quail hunter joyously taking the field, his face beaming with health and good living, to hunt down and shoot to death as many as possible of the pitiful 25% remnant that managed to survive that pitiless winter. How many quail hunters, thank you, ever stayed their hands because of a hard winter on the quail? I warrant not one out of every hundred. How many states in this union ever put on a closed season because of a hard winter? I'll warrant that not one ever did. And I think there is only one state whose Game Commissioners have the power to act in that way without recourse to the legislature. This situation is intolerable. Thanks to the splendid codified game laws enacted in New York State in 1912, our conservation commission can declare a closed season in any locality for any length of time when the state of the game demands an emergency measure. This act is as follows, and it is a model law which every other state should speedily enact. The New York closed season law. Number one five two, petition for additional protection, notice of hearings, power to grant additional protection, notice of prohibition or regulation, penalties. Number one, petition for additional protection. Any citizen of the state may file with the commission a petition in writing requesting it to give any species of fish other than migratory food fish of the sea or game protected by law, additional or other protection than that afforded by the provisions of this article. Such petition shall state the grounds upon which such protection is considered necessary and shall be signed by the petitioner with his address. Number two, notice of hearings. The commissioner shall hold a public hearing in the locality or county to be affected upon the allegations of such petition within twenty days from the filing thereof. At least ten days prior to such a hearing noticed thereof stating the time and place at which such hearing shall be held shall be advertised in a newspaper published in the county to be affected by such additional or other protection. Such notice shall state the name and the address of the petitioner together with a brief statement of the grounds upon which such application is made and a copy thereof shall be mailed to the petitioner at the address given in such petition at least ten days before such hearing. Number three, power to grant additional protection. If upon such hearing the commission shall determine that such species of fish or game by reason of disease, danger of extermination or from any other cause or reason requires such additional or other protection in any locality or throughout the state, the commission shall have power to prohibit or regulate during the open season therefore the taking of such species of fish or game. Such prohibition or regulation may be made general throughout the state or confined to a particular part or district thereof. Number four, notice of prohibition or regulation. Any order made by the commission under the provisions of this section shall be signed by it and entered in its minute book. At least thirty days before such prohibition or regulation shall take effect, copies of the same shall be filed in the office of the clerk issuing hunting and trapping licenses for the district to which the prohibition or regulation applies. It shall be the duty of said clerks to issue a copy of said prohibition or regulation to each person to whom a hunting or trapping license is issued by them, to mail a copy of such prohibition or regulation to each holder of a hunting and trapping license, there to four, issued by them and at that time in effect, and to post a copy thereof in a conspicuous place in their office. At least thirty days before such prohibition or regulation shall take effect, the commission shall cause a notice thereof to be advertised in the newspaper published in the county wherein such prohibition or regulation shall take effect. Number five, penalties. Any person violating the provisions of such prohibition, rule, or regulation shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall, upon conviction, be subject to a fine of not to exceed one hundred dollars or shall be imprisoned for not more than thirty days or both for each offense, in addition to the penalties here and after provided for taking fish, birds, or quadrupeds in the closed season. I want all sensible, honest sportsmen, to stop citing the killing of game birds by severe winters as a reason why long closed seasons are not necessary and why automatic guns don't matter. And I want sportsmen to consider their duty and not go out hunting any game species that has been slaughtered by a hard winter until it has had at least five years in which to recover. Any other course is cruel, selfish, and short-sighted and a word to the humane should be sufficient. The worst exhibitions ever made of the wolfish instinct to slay that spring's eternal in some human breasts are those brought about through the distress or errors of wild animals. By way of illustration consider the slaughter of half-starved elk that took place in the edge of Idaho in the winter of 1909 and 1910, when about seven hundred elk that were driven out of the Yellowstone Park at its northwestern corner by the deep snow fled into Idaho in the hope of finding food. The inhabitants met the starving herds with repeating rifles and as the unfortunate animals struggled westward through the snow and storm they were slaughtered without mercy. Bulls and cows, old and young, all of the seven hundred went down and stony Indians could not have acted any worse than did those settlers. On another occasion it is recorded that the pronghorn antelope herd of the mammoth hot springs wandered across the line into Gardner and quickly met a savage attack of gunners with rifles. A number of those rare and valuable animals were killed and others fled back into the park with broken legs dangling in the air. In the interest of public decency and for the protection of the reputation of American citizenship one of two things should be done. The northern boundary of the park should be extended northward beyond Gardner or else the death trap should be moved elsewhere. The case of the town of Gardner is referred to the legislature of Montana for treatment. Beyond question, the highest sentiments of humanity are those that are stirred by the misfortunes of killable game. During the past thirty years I have noticed some interesting manifestations of the increased sympathy for wild creatures that steadily is growing in a large section of the public mind. Thirty years ago the appearance of a deer or a moose in the streets of any eastern village nearly always was in itself a signal for a grand chase of the unfortunate creature and its speedy slaughter. Today in the eastern states the general feeling is quite different. The appearance of a deer in the Hudson River itself or a moose in a main village is a signal, not for a wild chase and a cruel slaughter, but for a general effort to save the animal from being hurt or killed. I know this through ocular proof at least half a dozen lost and bewildered deer have been carefully driven into yards or barns and humanely kept and cared for until they could be shipped to us. Several have been caught while swimming in the Hudson bewildered and panic-stricken. The latest capture occurred in New York City itself. A puma that escaped, about 1902, from the zoological park, instead of being shot, was captured by sensible people in the hamlet of Bronxdale, alive and unhurt, and safely returned to us. In some portions of the east, though not all, the day of the hue and cry over a wild animal in town seemed to be about over. On Long Island some humane persons found an injured turkey vulture and took it in and cared for it, only to be persecuted by ill-advised game wardens because they had a forbidden wild bird in their possession. There are times when it is the highest moral duty of a game warden to follow the advice of private Mulvaney to the orfacer boy and shut your eye to the regulations, sir. Such occurrences, as these, are becoming more and more common. The desire of the great silent majority is to save the wild creatures, and it is in response to that sentiment than thousands of people are today in the field against the army of destruction. It is the duty of every sportsman to assist in promoting the passage of a law like our New York Law, which empowers the State Game Commission to throw extra protection around any species that has been slaughtered too much by snow or firearms, by closing the open season as long as may be necessary. Can there be, in all America, even one thinking, reasoning being who cannot see the justice and also the imperative necessity of this measure? It seems impossible. Give the game the benefit of every doubt. If it becomes too thick, your gun can quickly thin it out, but if it is once exterminated it will be impossible to bring it back. Be wise and take thought for the morrow. Remember the heathen. In the late winter and early spring of 1896 the wave of blue birds was caught on its northward migration by a period of unseasonably cold and fearfully tempestuous weather involving much icy cold rain and sleet. Now there is no other climactic condition that is so hard for a wild bird or mammal to withstand as rain at the freezing point and a mantle of ice or frozen snow over the supplies of food. The blue birds perished by thousands. The loss occurred practically all along the east and west line of migration from Arkansas to the Atlantic coast. In places the species seemed almost exterminated and it was several years ere it recovered to a point even faintly approximating its original population. I am quite certain that the species has never recovered more than 50 percent of the number that existed previous to that calamity. Duck cholera in the Bronx River. In 1911 some unknown but new and particularly deadly element probably introduced in sewage contaminated the waters of Bronx River where it flows through New York City with results very fatal in the zoological park. The large flock of mallard ducks, Canadian geese, and snow geese on Lake Agases was completely wiped out. In all about 125 waterfall died in rapid succession. From causes commonly classed under the popular name of duck cholera. The disease was carried to other bodies of water in the park that were fed from other sources but made no headway elsewhere then on lakes fed by the polluted Bronx River. Fortunately the work of the Bronx River Parkway Commission soon will terminate the present very unsanitary condition of that stream. Wild ducks in distress. In the winter of 1911-12 many flocks of wild ducks decided to winter in the north. Many persons believed that this was largely due to the prevention of late winter and spring shooting which seems reasonable. Unfortunately the winter referred to proved exceptionally severe and formed vast sheets of thick ice over the feeding grounds where the ducks had expected to obtain their food. On Cayuga, Seneca, and other lakes in Central New York and on the island of Martha's Vineyard the flocks of ducks suffered very severely and many perished of hunger and cold. But for the laws prohibiting late winter shooting undoubtedly all of them would have been shot and eaten regardless of their distress. Game Wardens and humane citizens made numerous efforts to feed the starving flocks and many ducks were saved in that way. An illustrated article on the distressed ducks of Cayuga Lake by C. William Beebe and Verde Birch appeared in the Zoological Society Bulletin for May 1912. Fortunately there is every reason to believe that such occurrences will be rare. Wild swans swept over Niagara Falls. During the past 10 years several winter tragedies to birds have occurred on a large scale at Niagara Falls. Whole flocks of whistling swans of from 20 up to 70 individuals alighting in the Niagara River above the rapids have permitted themselves to float down into the rapids and be swept over the falls en masse. On each occasion the great majority of the birds were drowned or killed on the rocks. Of the very few that survived few if any were able to rise and fly out of the gorge below the falls to safety. It is my impression that about two hundred swans recently have perished in this way. End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Outvanishing Wildlife This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This reading by Lucy Burgoyne Outvanishing Wildlife by William T. Hornaday Chapter 11 Slaughter of Songbirds by Italians In these days of wildlife slaughter we hear much of death and destruction. Before our eyes there continually arise photographs of hanging masses of waterfowl, grass, pheasants, deer and fish usually supported in true heraldic fashion by the men who slew them and the implements of slaughter. The world has become somewhat hardened to these things because the victims are classed as game and in the destruction of game one game bag more or less will not count in the news of the battle. The slaughter of song, insectivorous and all other birds by Italians and other aliens from southern Europe has become as gorge to the bird life of this country. The devilish work of the negros and poor whites at the south will be considered in the next chapter. In Italy linens and sparrows are game and so is everything else that wears feathers. Italy is a continuous slaughtering ground for the migratory birds of Europe and as such it is an international nuisance and a pest. The way passerine birds are killed and eaten in that country is a disgrace to the government of Italy and a standing reproach to the throne. Even kings and parliaments have no right in moral or international law to permit year after year the wholesale slaughter of birds of passage of species that no civilized man has a right to kill. There are some tales of slaughter from which every properly balanced Christian mind is bound to recoil with horror. One such tale has recently been given to us in the pages of the Avercultural Magazine of London for January 1912 by Mr. Hubert Diassoli F. Z. S. whose word no man will dispute in condensing it let us call it the Italian slaughter of the innocence. This story does not concern game birds of any kind quite the contrary that it should be published in America a land now rapidly filling up with Italians is a painful necessity in order that the people of America may be enabled accurately to measure the Fatherland traditions and the fixed mental attitudes of Italians generally toward our stone birds. I shall now hold a mirror up to a Italian nature if the image is either hideous or grotesque the fault will not be mine. I especially commend the picture to the notice of American game wardens and judges on the bench. The American reader must be reminded that the Italian peninsula reaches out a long arm of land into the Mediterranean Sea for several hundred miles toward the sunny Barbary coast of North Africa. This great southboard highway has been chosen by the birds of Central Europe as their favorite migration route especially is this true of the small songbirds with weak wings and a minimum of power for long sustained flight. Naturally they follow the peninsula down to the Italian lands end before they launch forth to dare the passage of the Mediterranean. Illustration an Italian rockolo on Lake Como a death trap for songbirds from the avicultural magazine. Italy is the narrow end of the great continental funnel into the wide northern end of which Germany Austria France and Switzerland annually pour their volume of migratory bird life and what is the result. For answer let us take the testimony of two reliable witnesses and file it for use on the day when Tony Matawan gun in hand and pockets bulging with cartridges goes afield in our country and opens fire on our birds. The Lonette is one of the sweet singers of Europe. It is a small delicately formed weak winged little bird about the size of our feisty bird. It weighs only a trifle more than a girl's love letter where it breeds and rears its young. In Germany for example a true sportsman would no more think of shooting a Lonette than he would of killing and eating his daughter's dearest canary. To the migrating bird the approach to northern Italy either going or returning is not through a land of plenty the sheltering forests have mostly been swept away and safe shelters for small birds are very rare. In the open there are owls and hawks and the only refuge from either is the tick-leaf grove into which Lonettes and pippets can dive at the approach of danger and quickly hide. A Lonette from the north after days of dangerous travel finally reached Lake Como southward bound. The country was much too open for safety and its first impulse was to look about for safe shelter. The low bushes that's basically covered the steep hillsides were too thin for refuge in times of sudden danger. Ah upon a hilltop is a little grove of trees green and inviting. In the grove a bird is calling calling insistently. The trees are very small but they seem to stand tickly together and their foliage should afford a haven from both hawk and gunner to its joyously flits the tired Lonette. As a perch aloft upon a convenient whip like wand it notices for the first time a queer square brick tower of small dimensions rising in the center of a courtyard surrounded by trees. The tower is like an old and dingy turret that has been shorned from a castle and set on the hilltop without apparent reason. It is two stories in height with one window dingy and uninviting. A door opens into its base. Several birds that seem very near but are invisible frequently call and chirp as if seeking answering calls and companionship. Surely the grove must be a safe place for birds or they would not be here. Hark a whirring whistling sound fills the air like the air tone of a flying hawk's wings a hawk a hawk down plunges the scared Lonette blindly frantically into the space sheltered by the grove. Horrors what is this threads invisible interlacing threads tangled and full of pockets treacherously spanning the open space. It is a foul as net the Lonette is entangled it flutters frantically but helplessly and hangs there caught its alarm cry is frantically answered by the two strange invisible bird voices that come from the top of the tower the grove and the tower are a rockolo a huge permanent merciless deadly trap for the wholesale capture of songbirds the tower is the hiding place of the fowler and the calling birds are decoy birds whose eyes have been totally blinded by red hot wires in order that they will call more frantically than birds with eyes would do. The whistling wings that seemed a hawk were ashamed made by a racket thrown through the air by the fowler through a slot in his tower he keeps by him many such rackets the door of the tower opens and out comes the fowler he is low-browed swarthy ill-kept and wears rings in his ears a soiled hand seizes the struggling Lonette and drags it violently from the threads that entangled it a sharp pointed tweak is thrust straight through the head of the helpless victim at the eyes and after one while fluttering agony it is dead the fowler sighs contentedly re-enters his dirty and foul smelling tower tosses the feathered atom upon the pile of dead birds that lies upon the dirty floor in a dirty corner and is ready for the next one asking as did Mr Astley and he will tell you frankly that there are about a hundred and fifty dead birds in the pile starlings sparrows linettes green finches chaffinches gold finches whore finches red starts black caps robins song thrushes black birds blue and cold tits field fairs and red wings he will tell you also that there are seven other rockolos within sight and 12 within easy walking distance he will tell you as he did mr astley that during that week he had taken about 500 birds and that that number was a fair average for each of the 12 other rockolos this means the destruction of about 5000 songbirds per week in that neighborhood alone another keeper of a rockolo told mr astley that during the previous autumn he took about 10 000 birds at his small and comparatively insignificant rockolo and above that awful rockolo of slaughtered innocence rose a wooden cross in memory of christ the merciful the compassionate around the interior of the entwined saplings tops that form the fatal bowler of death they hung a semicircle of tiny cages containing live decoys chaffinches whore finches titmice and several other species the older and stater ones call repeatedly says mr astley and the chaffinches break into song it is the only song to be heard in italy at the time of the autumn migration and the king of italy the queen of italy the parliament of italy and his holiness the pope have met these things year in and year out it is now said however that through the efforts of a recently organized bird lovers society in italy the blinding of decoy birds from rockolos is to be stopped in germany austria and switzerland the protection of these birds during their breeding season must be very effective for otherwise the supply for the italyan slaughter of the innocence would long ago have fallen to nothing the germans love birds and all wildlife i wonder how they like the italyan rockolo i wonder how france regards it and whether the nations of europe north of italy will endure this situation forever to the american and english reader comment on the practices recorded above it's quite unnecessary except the observation that they be token a callousness of feeling and a depth of cruelty and destructiveness to which so far as known no savages ever yet have sunk as an exhibit at the grovelling puzzle and amenity at the human soul the rockolo of northern italy reveals minus qualities which cannot be expressed either in words or in figures and what is the final exhibit at the gallant night at the rockolo the feudal lord of the modern castle and its retainers the answer is given by dr louis the bishop in an article on birds in the markets of southern europe in venice which was visited in october and november during the full migration he found on sale in the markets as food thousands of songbirds birds were there in profusion from ducks to kites in the early morning hung in a great bunches above the stalls but by 9 am most of them had been sold ducks and shorebirds occurred in some numbers but the vast majority were small sparrows larks and thrushes these were there during my visit by the thousands if not ten thousands to the market they were brought in large sacks strung in pores on twigs which had been passed through the eyes and then tied most of these small birds had been trapped and on skimming them i often could find no injury except at their eyes one of these sacks which i examined in november third contained hundreds of birds largely succinct skylarks and bramblings as a real the small birds that were not sold in the early morning were skinned or picked and their tiny bodies packed in regular order breast sunk in shadow tin boxes and exposed for sale footnote it is probable that these birds were killed by piercing the head through the eyes during these visits to the venetian markets i identified sixty species and procured specimens of most as nearly as i can remember small birds cost from two to five cents a piece for example i paid two dollars fifteen on november eight four one woodcock one skylark one j one green finch two starlings one bullfinch two spotter crepes one red pole one song thrush three linettes one gold crest two gold finches one long tail tipmouse six siskins one grape tipmouse three red buntings one pipit three bramblings one red star and five two finches on november i paid three dollars twenty five four two coots one european curlew one mortar rail two kingfishers one spotter crepe two green finches one sparrow hawk two rinds two woodcock two great tipmouse one common red shank two blue tipmouse one dusky red shank one red breast and two dunlands of course there were various species of upland game birds shore birds and mortar fowl everything in fact that could be found and killed in addition to the passerine birds listed above doctor bishop noted the following all in venice alone skylark in great numbers crested lark crossbill calandra house sparrow trees sparrow stone chat hawfinch coal yellow hammer gold crest blackbird rock pipit field fair white wagtail song thrush redwing in florans says doctor bishop i visited the central market on november 26 28 29 30 December 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 and 9 and found birds even more plentiful than in venice besides a variety of game birds he found quantities of the species mentioned above seen in venice and also the following green sand piper brown creeper dotterl nut hage magpie black cat warbler corn bunting blackheaded warbler migratory quail bandtail warbler green woodpecker missile thrush spotted woodpecker ring oozle woodlark rocks sparrow and gray wagtail here too at florans we saw often bunches and baskets of small birds chiefly red breasts hawk through the streets every sunday that we went into the country we met numbers of Italians out shooting and their bags seemed to consist holy of small birds at genoa san remo Monte Carlo and niece between december 13 and 29 i did not visit the central markets if such exist but saw frequently bunches of small birds hanging outside stores a gentleman who spent the form on an automobile trip through the west of france from britney to the pyrenees tells me he noticed these bunches of small birds on sale in every town he visited that killing songbirds for food continues dr bishop is not confined to the poor italians i learned on october 27 when one of the most prominent and wealthy italian ornithologists at the lightful man told me he had shot 180 skylarks and pippets the day before and that his family liked them far better than other game our prejudice against selling game does not exist in europe and the same ornithologist told me he often shot 200 ducks in a day at his shooting box sending to the market that he could not use himself on november 1 1910 he shot 82 ducks and on november 8 103 chiefly widgen and teal an ornithologist indeed a sportsman also is he not he belongs with his brother ornithologist of the rocolos who negate with the aid of blind birds brave men felon sportsman are these men of italy and western france also if the tale is true if the people of europe can stand the whole sale systematic slaughter of their song an insectivorous birds we can if they are too mean spirited to rise up make a row about it and stop it then let them pay the price but by the eternal antonio shall not come to this country with the songbird tastes of the rocolo and indulge them here the above facts have been cited not at all for the benefit of europe but for our own good the american people and now confronted by the italian and austrian and hungarian laborer and saloon keeper and mechanic and all americans should have an exact measure at the sentiments of southern europe toward our wildlife generally especially the birds that we do not shoot at all and therefore are easy to kill when a warden or a citizen arrests an alien for killing any of our non-game birds show the judge these records of how they do things in italy and ask for the extreme penalty i have taken pains to publish the above facts from eyewitnesses in order that every game commissioner game warden and state legislator who reads these pages may know exactly what he is up against in the alien population of our country from southern europe for unnumbered generations the people of italy have been taught to believe that it is perfectly right to shoot and devour every songbird that flies the venetian is no respecter of species and when an italian ornithologist can go out and murder 180 linets and pippets in one day for the pot it is time for americans to think hard we sincerely hope that it will not require blows and kicks and fines to remove from antonio's head the idea that america is not italy and that the slaughter of songbirds don't go in this country i strongly recommend to every state the enactment of a law that will do these things one prohibit the owning carrying or use of firearms by aliens and two prohibit the use of firearms in hunting by any naturalized alien from southern europe until after a 10 years residence in america from reports that have come to me at first hand regarding italians in the east hungarians in pennsylvania and austrians in minnesota it seems absolutely certain that all members of the lower classes of southern europe are a dangerous menace to our wildlife on account of the now accursed land of liberty idea every foreigner who sails past the statue on bedlose island and lands on our liberty ridden shore is firmly convinced that now at last he can do as he pleases and as one of his first ways in which to show his newly acquired personnel liberty and independence in the land of easy marks he buys a gun and goes out to shoot free game if we as a people are so indolent and so somnolent that antonio gets away with all our wild birds then we deserve to be robbed italians are pouring into america in a steady stream they are strong prolific persistent and of tireless energy new york city now contains 340 000 of them they work while the native americans sleep wherever they settle their tendency is to root out the native american and take his place and his income toward wild life the italian labourer is a human mongrus give him power to act and he will quickly exterminate every wild thing that wears feathers or hair to our songbirds he is literally a pestilence that walketh at noonday as we have shown the italian is a born pot hunter and he is grown up in the fixed belief the killing songbirds for food is right to him all is game that goes into the bag the moment he sets foot in the open he provides himself with a shotgun and he looks about for things to kill it is a free country therefore he may kill anything he can find cook it and eat it if anybody attempts to check him so pristi be where he's gone he chiefly invades your fields and even your lawn and he shoots robins bluebirds thrushes cat birds grows beaks tenages or release woodpeckers quail snot ducks crows and herons downing virginia new charlottesville an italian who was working on a new railroad once killed a turkey buzzard and he selfishly cooked it and ate it all alone a pot hunting compatriot of his herd of it and reproach him for having dined on game in camera in the quarrel that ensued one of the sportsmen stabbed the other to death when the new york zoological society began work on its park in 1899 the northern half of the borough of the bronx was a regular daily hunting ground for the slaughter of songbirds and all other birds that could be found every sunday it was bangity bang from palham bay to van courtland the police force paid not the slightest attention to these open flagrant shameless violations of the city ordinances and the state bird laws in those days i never but once heard of the policeman on his own initiative arresting a bird shooter even on sunday but whenever meryl some special wardens from the zoological park had pointedly called upon the local police force for help it has always been given with cheerful alacrity in the fall of 1912 an appeal to the police commissioner resulted in a general order to stop all hunting and shooting in the borough of the bronx and a reform is now on the war on the bird killers in new york city begun in 1900 it seemed that if the zoological society did not take up the matter the slaughter would continue indefinitely the white man's burden was taken up and the story of the war is rather illuminating mr geo shields president of the league of american sportsmen quickly became interested in the matter and entered actively into the campaign for months unnumbered he spent every sunday patrolling the woods and tickets of the northern new york and westchester county usually accompanied by john j rose and rudolf bell and the zoological park force the whom appointments as deputy game wardens had been secured from the state the adventurers of that redoubtable trio of man hunters would make an interesting chapter they were shot at by poachers but more frequently they shot at the other fellows just why it was that no one was killed no one seems to know many italians and several americans were arrested while hunting hailed to court prosecuted and fined finally a reign of terror set in and that was the beginning at the end it became known that those three men could not be stopped by threats and that they always got their man unless he got into a human rabbit warren of the italian boarding house species that was the only escape that was possible the largest hall of dead birds was 43 robins or eels thrushes and woodpeckers captured along with the five italians who committed the indiscretion of sitting down in the woods to divide their dead birds we saved all the birds in alcohol and showed them in court the judge fined two of the italians fifty dollars each and the other three were sent to the penitentiary for two months each even yet however at long intervals an occasional son of sunny italy tries his luck at sunday bird shooting but if anyone yells at him to hope he throws away his gun and stampede through the brush like a frightened deer the birds of upper new york are now fairly secure but it has taken ten years of fighting to bring it about throughout new york state pennsylvania new jersey connecticut massachusetts and even minnesota where there are large settlements of italians and hungarians the reports are the same they swarm through the country every sunday and shoot every wild thing they see wherever there are large construction works railroads canals or aqueducts look for bird slaughter and you are sure to find it the exception to this rule so far as i know is along the line of the new cat skill aqueduct coming to new york setting the contractors have elected not to permit bird slaughter and the rule has been made that any man who goes out hunting will instantly be discharged that is the best rule that ever was made for the protection of birds and game against gang working aliens let every state and province in america look out sharply for the bird killing foreigner for sooner or later he will surely attack your wild life the italians are spreading spreading spreading if you are without them today tomorrow they will be around you meet them at the threshold with drastic laws truly enforced for no halfway measures will answer pennsylvania has had the worst experience of alien slaughterers of any state thus far six of her game wardens have been killed and eight or ten have been wounded by shooting finally her legislator arose in wrath and passed a law prohibiting the ownership or possession of guns of any kind by aliens the law gives the right of the miscellery search and it surely is enforced of course the foreign population kicked against the law but the people steamroller went over them just the same in new york we require from an alien a license costing twenty dollars and it has saved a million perhaps of our birds but the pennsylvania law is the best it may be taken as a model for every state and province in america its text is as follows section one the it enacted etc that from and after the passage of this act it shall be unlawful for any unnaturalized foreign born resident to hunt for or capture or kill in this commonwealth any wild bird or animal either game or otherwise of any description accepting in defense a personal or property and to that end it shall be unlawful for any unnaturalized foreign born resident within this commonwealth to either own or be possessed of a shotgun or rifle of any monk each and every person violating any provision of this section shall upon conviction thereof be sentenced to pay a penalty of twenty five dollars for each offense or undergo imprisonment in the common jail of the county for the period of one day for each dollar of penalty imposed provided that in addition to the before name penalty all guns of the before mentioned kinds found in possession or under control of an unnaturalized foreign born resident shall upon conviction of such person or upon his signing a declaration of guilt as prescribed by this act be declared forfeited to the commonwealth of pennsylvania and shall be sold by the border game commissioners as herein after directed section two for the purpose of this act any unnaturalized foreign born person who shall reside or live within the boundaries of the commonwealth of pennsylvania for ten consecutive days shall be considered a resident and shall be liable to the penalties imposed for violation of the provisions of this act section three that the possession of a shotgun or rifle at any place outside of a building within this commonwealth by an unnatural foreign born resident shall be conclusive proof of a violation of the provisions of section one of this act and shall render any person convicted thereof liable to the penalty as fixed by said section four that the presence of a shotgun or rifle in a room or house or building or tent or camp of any description within this commonwealth occupied by or controlled by an unnaturalized foreign born resident shall be primate facing evidence that such gun is owned or controlled by the person occupying or controlling the property in which such gun is found and shall render such person liable to the penalty imposed by section one of this act other sections provided for the full enforcement of this law it is now high time and imperative public necessity that every state should act in this matter before its bird life is suddenly attacked and serious inroads made upon it do it now the enemy is headed your way don't wait for him to strike the first blow duty of the Italian press and clergy now what is the best remedy for the troubles that will arise for Italians in America because of wrong principles established in Italy it is not in the law the police the court and the punishment it is in educating the Italian into a knowledge of the duties of the good citizen the Italian press and clergy can do this and no one else can do it so easily so quickly and so well those two powerful forces should enter seriously upon this task in every other respect the naturalized Italian tries to become a good citizen and adjust himself to the laws and the customs of his new country why should he not do this in regard to bird life it is not too much to ask nor is it too much to exact does the Italian workman or storekeeper who makes his living by honest toil enjoy breaking our bird laws enjoy irritating and injuring those with whom he has come to live does he enjoy being watched and searched and chased and arrested all for a few small birds that he does not need for food he earns good wages he has plenty of good food and he must be educated into protecting our birds instead of destroying them the Italian newspapers and clergy have a serious duty to perform in this matter and we hope they will diligently discharge it illustration dead songbirds these jars contain the dead bodies of 43 valuable insectivirus birds that were taken from two Italians in october 1905 in the suburbs of new york city by game wardens of the new york zoological society end of chapter 11