 Forward of Wild Bird Guests. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Wild Bird Guests by Ernest Baines. Forward, kind hearts need no compulsion to be kind. McKay, for a long time, it has been the writer's belief that the final solution of the problem of wild bird conservation play not in the enacting of more or better laws necessary as those laws are, but in the creation of such an interest in and love for birds that a very large majority of people will have not only no desire to destroy them, but will actually fight to prevent their destruction and that the birds themselves will become as safe as valuable private property. This, it seems, would be a fundamental solution. Most bird protection laws are in the nature of artificial restraints upon people who desire to kill. Restraints are often necessary, but seldom popular. People do not like to be told not to do things which they very much desire to do. Consequently, such laws are often hard to obtain and harder to enforce. Now, if we could create the interest and love referred to, we might accomplish a double purpose. These, first, a great reduction in the number of people who desire to destroy the birds for any purpose and thus second, make it much easier to enforce existing laws in the case of those who still persist in the desire to destroy. In other words, every person in whom we succeed in implanting this interest and love would be a recruit for the army of bird defenders directly from the ranks of either the bird destroyers or the indifferent who are often quite as dangerous as the destroyers themselves. The result would be the strengthening of the defenders and a corresponding weakening of the destroyers and the tendency would ever be to facilitate the passage of such laws as might still be necessary and to make difficult the successful defiance of them. Now comes the question as to how this interest and the love which the interest begets can most readily be implanted in the heart of the average man, woman and child. The writer believes that the answer to this question lies in doing active work directly for the birds. There are few laws more sacred than those of hospitality. It is not possible for us to be indifferent to the welfare of our invited guests. The moment a person, be it man or bird, has accepted our hospitality, has broken bread with us, has eaten our salt, our relations toward that person have changed. We have been looked upon with the eyes of friendship. We have been trusted. And if we are even half decent, we cannot betray our trust. Through the primitive man, which is in most of us, we may kill a bird which we see in the wilderness, a stranger and on his guard. But the bird which comes to our garden, to our home onto our hand, perhaps at our express invitation, we must protect with all the manliness, with all the womanliness in our makeup. I shall never forget the first time a chickadee alighted upon me and I felt his wiry little hands close around my finger while he cocked his head on one side and looked up at me from under his little black cap as much as to say, is it all right, honest? It surely was all right. I was a champion of the chickadee from that moment. And today I can think of no sure way for a man to effect an instant quarrel with me and by injuring a bird of this species. And the love for one bird tends to be given a love for other birds. For the past few years, I have been watching the results of studied kindness and hospitality to the birds and the results have been good. I've seen the attitude of a whole town change from one of utter indifference to birds to one of enthusiastic interest in them. And I've seen this not once, but many times. I've organized many bird clubs, clubs which have for their chief object, not so much the study of birds as the extension of hospitality to them. And in every case, the result has been a better understanding between the members and their feathered neighbors, the creation of a strong local sentiment in favor of birds and an amount of rational enjoyment and moral uplift out of all proportion to the labor and expense involved. The writer makes no claim to originality except in the idea that bird clubs may be made a most powerful factor in the work of bird conservation and incidentally in the social life of the people in the towns and villages where they are organized. Judging from his own experience, it should be possible in a few years time to spread a network of such clubs over the United States. Any wide awake enthusiastic bird lover with the reasonable knowledge of methods of attracting and protecting birds can organize a bird club almost anywhere. In order to do so, it is not necessary to be an ornithologist. One need not know a scarlet tannager from a great blue heron if only he has enthusiasm. That is absolutely essential. Because of the enormous value of birds, economic, aesthetic and moral, the writer believes that it is the duty of every civilized community to take its part in a great worldwide campaign for the conservation of bird life. And he knows of no more practical way to do this than by the organization of a bird club whose principal object is the care of the local birds. If this little book helps to inspire its readers to organize such bird clubs in their respective towns and assist them in their efforts to do something for the birds, whether they succeed in organizing a bird club or not, they will have accomplished the object for which it was written. EHB, Meriden, New Hampshire, May 1, 1915. End of forward. Chapter one of Wild Bird Guests by Ernest Baines. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. An introduction to some winter guests. If on some winter day you were to alight from Ike Bonner's stage and approach one of the neat looking cottages on the main street of Meriden, New Hampshire, it is more than likely that you would be greeted by the alighting of a wild bird up on your shoulder. And probably you would think that the bird had simply made a mistake until another one alighted on your hat and peeped at you over the brim. Then if you ask the meaning of this familiarity, you would be told that you were in the bird village where birds are treated as honored guests from one year's end to another, where they are provided with food and lodging and where they are protected from their enemies. And you would hear of all sorts of interesting and delightful experiences which some of the people have had with birds which have become so fearless that they will sometimes permit one to pick them up. And if you were to express doubt that such experiences would ever come to you, you would learn that there is no mystery about it, that it is simply a matter of being very quiet and gentle with your feathered guests, of being patient with them and of using a little thought and ingenuity for their comfort and welfare. Meriden people have done these things and they have been rewarded by having seven species of our winter birds come to their hands for food. Pine, gross beaks, white wing crossbills, red poles, pine siskins, white-breasted nut hatches, red-breasted nut hatches, and chickadees have thus shown their appreciation of what the people of this little New England village have done for them. Perhaps no other place of equal size in this country has thus been honored. Every year for several years our people have had some memorable experience with birds. For example, one severe winter when the pine gross beaks came down from the north in great numbers, we fed hundreds of them in the gardens of Meriden and not only the rider, but several other bird lovers fed them as they sat on hand or shoulder. They were so tame that one could sit down in the middle of a flock and the birds would come into one's lap to feed. They would alight upon the heads of children watching them and sometimes they allowed us to pick them up, one in each hand. Another winter the crossbills visited us. A few, six or eight had been coming most of the summer to the garden path. Two or three were American and the rest white-winged crossbills. They crept about quite as mice eating something, but just what it was I could not tell until they had been here for some time. Then one day after watching them at work for several minutes, I took a magnifying glass and went down on my knees to see what there might be there to attract them. I found that they had been working on a patch of clay, the surface of which they had carved in every direction with their sharp bills. As there were no chips, I knew that these must have been eaten so I tasted the clay to see why they had eaten it. It was very salty the result of scattering salt on the path to kill the weeds. A few days later, our friend, Frederick H. Conard came to see us and observing the crossbills, ran into the house with some salt of which he had often observed their fondness. The flock continued to grow until midwinter when it numbered about 125. We went out to play with them for a while almost every day and by and by they seemed to look for our coming. We would sit on the well-trempled snow we had prepared for their feeding ground and from the trees about us they would come down in a musical shower to a light upon our heads and shoulders and to feed from our hands. It was such fun that sometimes even when the thermometer registered from 10 to 15 degrees below zero we would sit there feeding them, photographing them or often simply watching them until we were almost too numb to get out. Sometimes in winter the red-polls come to meriden in flocks aggregating many hundreds and there are usually a number of pine siskins among them. At such times the streets of the village are alive with birds and their cheerful twitterings make it seem as though spring had come back several weeks in advance. These little birds are light in the door yards and swarm over their piazzas like flies on a sugar bowl and they will feed from the hands of anyone who has the patience to stand still in the snow for a little while. I've sat down among them and had both species not only take food from my hand but treat me very much as they would have bushed or stumped. Neither of the nut hatches has ever condescended to a light upon me but a red-breasted nut hatch once allowed me to stroke him with a forefinger as he was feeding on suet and neighbors of ours entertained one which used to come to their hands almost every day for months. I've almost touched a downy woodpecker but not quite. He was feeding on a food tree at Meriden and showed no fear when I walked up until my face was within eight inches of him. My enemies say that this marks the limit of courage in any wild bird and that woodpecker should have been awarded a medal for bravery. But as a rule the chickadees are the tamest of all there seems to be no limit to the confidence which these little fellows will have in you if you give them a little encouragement. At my home they know us so well that if they don't see what they want they practically ask us for it. Sometimes before we are up in the morning they will sit in a row on the bedroom windows sill and hammer on the glass with their bills. We open the window and in they come. Like as not they will find some broken nuts on the dressing table. If so they may eat them there or they may fly out into the garden with them. One morning we invited them to breakfast we set the breakfast table close to an open window and sprinkled broken nuts upon the cloth. In came the chickadees picked up the nuts and flew out into the garden with them. To teach them better manners we swept up the small pieces of nut and stitched each large piece to the tablecloth. After that the chickadees stayed right on the table and took breakfast with us. One day when we were living at Stoneham, Massachusetts I saw a flock of these little birds in a tree and I thought I would see how tame I could make them. I held out a handful of broken nuts and gave an imitation of the Phoebe note of the chickadee. One little fellow flew down to my hand picked up a piece of nut and flew away. I called to Mrs. Baines to bring a camera and when I saw another bird coming instead of holding the loose nuts in the palm of my hand as before I held a single piece tight between my thumb and forefinger. Down came the chickadee and finding that he could not fly away with the nut he sat there for several minutes and ate it. That seemed pretty good for a first attempt but I thought I would test him further. I placed a piece of nut between my lips and held up my forefinger as a perch for him. He needed no second invitation but I lighted on the finger and helped himself. It didn't seem possible that a bird could show much more confidence than that but I thought I'd put him to still another test. Leaving the nut just where it was I calmly folded my hands behind my back leaving him no perch at all. It didn't phase him one bit for the next moment he lighted on my lip and helped himself to the nut as though he had been used to feeding in this way all his life. When we came to New Hampshire we found that chickadees just as friendly. A flock made our house its headquarters and the first time that Mrs. Baines went out to feed them she succeeded in getting five of them to a light upon her at once. She used English walnuts and a little patience. On one occasion I was in the garden with a rifle practicing at a mark when a chickadee alighted on the front site tipped over and deliberately looked down the barrel as much as to say I wonder what there is in that. Sometimes when I am in the woods far from the house the chickadees will come to me. I remember one better winter day I was sitting in the snow having my lunch and the chickadees warmed about me alighting on my cap, my shoulders and my snowshoes which I had taken off and stuck in the snow. I pulled a sandwich from my pocket and as I put it to my lips a chickadee came down out of a tree overhead I lighted on the other end of the sandwich and helped me to eat it. When we go out in winter the chickadees often come down like so many little highwaymen and literally hold us up for nuts and other things we were likely to have in our pockets for them. I once had a chickadee sit on my hand eating nuts until he simply couldn't hold anymore. He looked absolutely comfortable and I half expected to hear a sigh of contentment. I cupped my other hand and put it over him until his head alone was visible in the circle of my thumb and forefinger and perhaps made drowsy by the warmth he closed his eyes and tucked his head beneath his wing. And it is not only in winter that the chickadees are with us they nest about the place and come to our hands though not as frequently in the spring summer and fall. Not long ago a pair of chickadees nested in our orchard and gave their nestlings an occasional meal of suet from a stump near the house. If we were photographing nearby the parent birds would come to our hands or alight upon the camera or tripod. When the young ones left the nest they were quite fearless and allowed us to approach and stroke them and when Mrs. Baines placed a youngster on her outstretched hand one of the parents came and poisoned hummingbird fashion. In the air beside it passed insects into its mouth. One day last spring I was delighted I'm returning from a lecture tour of several months duration to be met in the lane half a mile from my home by a band of chickadees and escorted to the house by my little friends first one and then another of whom would fly to my hands or shoulders. End of chapter one. Chapter two of Wild Bird Guests by Ernest Baines. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The destruction of birds by the elements and by disease. Birds seldom tell us of their troubles to be sure when their homes are in danger or when their little ones are killed or carried off some parent birds let us know by their frantic cries how real and bitter is their grief. And of course hungry nestlings often clamor for food but usually full grown birds like thoroughbred people take their troubles their dangers and even death itself with quiet courage and without any fuss. If they didn't I'm afraid their sympathetic human neighbors would get little rest for they are beset by so many dangers and faced death in so many forms that I sometimes wonder how any of them managed to escape. Of these dangers the elements are among the worst and least controllable. Storms often kill thousands of birds in a few hours. The small birds which during migration cross large bodies of open water are perhaps the ones most likely to perish in great numbers from this cause. Flocks of warblers winging their way across the Gulf of Mexico or one of the Great Lakes are sometimes overtaken by heavy storms which result in their wholesale destruction. Plucky as they are their tiny muscles are no match for the mighty winds which sweep the water and they are beaten backward and downward with no spot on which to rest even for a moment. Even in such dark hours their courage asserts itself they do not give up a battle still with their giant foe which hurls them far from their course. Then perhaps comes a cold and driving rain which soaks their plumage and increases the burden already too great for their weary muscles. Down they go toward the roaring water beneath them until they are met by the leaping waves which lick them into the deep where the last spark of their dauntless courage is quenched in death. Next morning their tiny bright colored bodies may be found strewn for miles along the coast among the shells and pebbles of the beach. The cold storms of late spring which come after many of the migrants have arrived sometimes kills nearly all the birds of certain species over a wide area of country. Insect eating birds suffer most as a rule from these storms because the insects are driven to cover and are hard to get in sufficient numbers to maintain life. Every now and then there comes a spring so cold and stormy that blue birds perish in great numbers and a great scarcity of these birds is observed the following year. More rarely the destruction is so widespread that several years pass before blue birds are seen again in their usual numbers. In the auk for October 1907, Dr. Thomas S. Roberts of the Minnesota Natural History Survey tells of a snowstorm which occurred in Minnesota and Iowa in March 1904 when not far from a million and a half lot land long spurs perished in a single night. But the birds which suffer most frequently and as a rule most severely from these untimely storms are those which capture their insect prey almost entirely on the wing. Such birds as swifts and swallows. The snow or cold rain having swept the air practically clear of insect life such birds quickly starve to death. Purple martens perhaps because they are larger than the other swallows and hence require more food often suffer very severely. For example, so many purple martens were destroyed by storms in the springs of 1903 and 1904 that there were hardly any of these beautiful birds to be found in Massachusetts and they were scarce all over New England. Even birds as hardy and omnivorous as the robin have a hard time in the late snow storms. Here in New Hampshire robins are often driven to eat the decayed apples which have hung frozen to the trees all winter and in some cases they eat so much of this fermenting fruit that they become intoxicated. Bad storms occurring in the nesting season cause great havoc among young birds. The wind breaks down branches and sometimes whole trees containing the nests and often the nests themselves are blown to the ground. Continuous heavy rain chills and kills the nestlings in spite of the best efforts of the parents to shield their little ones. One pouring wet June day I found a Phoebe's nest on the side of a cliff in Massachusetts. The cold water from the rock above was dripping into it and the five young birds were already dead. Only last spring a pair of chipping sparrows had a nest in a little bush close to my front door and all the young ones were killed by a cold wet storm. The brave little mother did her very best to shelter them and long after they were dead she continued to sit on the nest to cover them with her wet and bedraggled wings. Floods occurring during the nesting season are sometimes very destructive to birds which nest on the ground. Some years ago at Stamford, Connecticut, I had under observation several nests of song sparrows and other birds in a low-lying meadow. I went down there one morning after several days of heavy rain and found the meadow nests and all under water. Some of the nests had contained newly hatched young and the parents were still flitting about among the bushes nearby calling incessantly. More dramatic if much less serious is the destruction brought by the great waterfalls which every year take their toll of aquatic birds. Every spring many birds, chiefly ducks, geese and swans go over the horseshoe falls at Niagara. Some of these are killed outright but many of them are only stunned and might easily be saved. In 1912, 140 whistling swans went over the falls in this way and were fished out by boys and men knocked on the head and sold for food to people in Niagara Falls. Most of the birds were secured by a young man employed at the mate of the mist landing who living in that little house close to the water was always on the watch. With Mr. James Savage of Buffalo, I went to see this young man the following spring and he told us that the birds almost always came over at night. Far above the falls the water is smooth and here the birds are light. Apparently they are carried down into the swift water when asleep and then it is evidently impossible for them to save themselves. The young man told us that once he captured a swan that was only stunned and that he tied a fishing line to its leg and kept it in a little pond made by an eddy of the river. The bird became very tame and would take food from his hand but one day took alarm at a company of soldiers flew into the air and snapping the fishing line as though it had been a thread flew away down the river. Mr. Savage with some friends once saved a flock of swans by chasing them in a powerboat and making them fly away just before nightfall. It was a daring thing for these men to do for if by any chance the engine had become disabled nothing could have prevented their going over the falls. Severe winters destroy great numbers of birds which perish chiefly for lack of food. It seems that most birds can stand cold weather if only they can get food enough. A bird's body may be likened to a little furnace in which food takes the place of coal or wood as long as there is plenty of fuel in the furnace it remains warm no matter how cold the weather may be but when there's no fuel to be had the fire dies out and the bird with it. I once kept a turkey vulture in my garden in Massachusetts and though he is naturally a bird of a warmer climb he remained in perfect health through the very severe winter of 1903 through 1904 simply because I kept him well supplied with food. That same winter the hardy native birds died in great numbers because they could not get food could not get the fuel to keep the little furnaces going. According to the state ornithologist Edward Howe Forbush between 1990 and 95 out of every 100 quail in Massachusetts died of starvation that winter. Similar tragedies occur every severe winter and if we do a little thinking we find that there is no mystery about it. When the trees and bushes are sheathed in ice it must be very difficult and at times impossible for the insect eating birds such as woodpeckers not hatches, chickadees and creepers to get at the insects and larvae which lurk in and below the bark and in the axels of the twigs. And when the ground is covered under a foot or more of snow how can such birds as sparrows and finches and quail and other seed eaters dig down under it to get at their food. Of course some birds find weed stalks sticking out above the snow and others perhaps switch off onto a diet of berries but there are many others who failed to find enough to support life and these of course starve to death. We cannot control the elements but we can at times by offerings of food and shelter help the birds in their battle against the cold and the storms and this matter will be taken up in detail in a later chapter. The destruction of birds by disease that while birds sometimes become ill is a fact not very generally thought of perhaps and comparatively few of us have ever seen a sick bird in its native haunts. Yet birds are sometimes attacked by epidemics which work as much destruction among them as cholera or the bubonic plague works among human beings. Such an epidemic has recently been playing havoc with the waterfowl and marsh birds of Utah. In a letter to the writer, Mr. Fred W. Chambers, State Commissioner of Fish and Game says, since 1910 we have had an epidemic among the marsh birds of Utah, especially the ducks though the snipe family has suffered considerably. We collected and buried in quick lime over a million birds in the year 1910 and each year thereafter until the present time, not including 1914, we have buried in the neighborhood of 500,000 birds making a total of two and a half millions of birds that have been destroyed by this epidemic. We have worked constantly to find out the real cause of the epidemic but as yet have not been able to say just what it is. A considerable number of wild birds as well as domesticated ones are troubled with a parasite known by the formidable name of coxidiosis and which in some species causes a dangerous disease of the intestines. Professor Philip B. Hadley of the Biological Laboratory at Kingston, Rhode Island, who has been studying this parasite has found it in European sparrows, field sparrows, white-throated sparrows, junkos, robins and hermit thrushes. He also found that seemingly the parasite can be transmitted from European sparrows to domestic poultry. Professor Hadley considers that the spreading of this disease from one part of the country to another by means of these birds and especially by the European sparrow is not only a menace to domestic poultry but may result in the infection and destruction of wild game birds. This would seem to be another reason why we should unite in an effort to reduce the number of European sparrows. Grows, quail and others are known to suffer severely from disease at times and this fact presents perhaps the most serious difficulty met by those who attempt to rear these birds in captivity. End of chapter two. Chapter three of Wild Bird Guests by Ernest Bains. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The destruction of birds by their natural enemies. By the natural enemies of birds is here meant those wild creatures which naturally pray more or less upon birds. These include wild cats, wolves, foxes, bears, raccoons, weasels, mink, skunks, wolverines, squirrels, rats and opossums among our mammals, strikes, grackles, crows, jays, certain owls and hawks and occasionally other species among the birds, snapping turtles and many snakes among the reptiles, bullfrogs among the bat, tracheons and pike and possibly other voracious species among the fishes. There are others but these are the principle ones in this country, animals like cats, dogs and pigs which have been domesticated by man and European starlings and sparrows which have been imported by him are not strictly speaking natural enemies of our wild birds and will be treated of elsewhere. Some of the bird enemies mentioned above do a great deal of damage, others only a little and some so offset their own evil deeds by keeping other bird enemies in check that it is hard to decide whether we should class them as friends or foes. Probably all our wild cats, including mountain lions kill some birds if good opportunity offers and when wild turkeys and grouse were abundant they probably took their share. Audubon once saw a bobcat capture a wild turkey and on another occasion watched one pounds upon a partridge in a cubby which it had been carefully stalking. He also states that grouse and other birds form part of the food of the candidate lynx but these powerful cats prey upon so many for the creatures such as squirrels, rabbits and even deer and mountain sheep that it is doubtful if they would be a serious menace to bird life even if they were much more numerous than they are. The damage done to birds by wolves is probably slight owing to the fact that wolves preyed chiefly upon other creatures but we may be sure that no bird or nest of birds discovered by a wolf is permitted to escape if he can help it. Both timber wolves and coyotes have been known to kill domestic poultry. A tame coyote I once had at my home used to kill wounded birds whenever he saw them and once killed in partly eight a turkey goblet weighing nearly 25 pounds. There is plenty of evidence to show that foxes are often destructive to bird life. It is easiest to get such evidence in the spring when there are large families of hungry young foxes to be fed. At the mouth of a fox den at this season one may often see feathers, bones and other remains of grouse, quail and poultry. I once saw a fox shot just as she was about to enter her den with the grouse in her mouth. Foxes are wonderfully alert, sharp of ear, keen of sight and scent quick on their feet and very intelligent. If they were good climbers they would be perhaps the worst enemies the birds could have even as it is they capture wild birds in many different ways. Sometimes they stalk them and spring upon them as a cat might do and a fox has been seen to take a quick run and a tremendous leap and catch a small bird on the wing. They will attack game birds on the nest and their habit of capturing grouse which have been spending the night under the snow has long been known. I once saw a fox barely miscapturing a grouse as it left its snowy shelter. Another method not so widely known but which is apparently adopted by a good many foxes and possibly other animals consists in following the trail of persons who ramble in the woods and fields, apparently in the hope that they will lead to something desirable. Foxes are naturally curious and have long been known to follow people seemingly to satisfy their curiosity. Now and then a fox comes upon the track of someone who has been visiting a bird's nest and following it finds that it leads to a meal of eggs or nestlings. Ever afterwards probably that fox will follow the trails of other human beings who cross his path in the hope of similar pleasing results. So closely will foxes follow up clues of this kind that in some parts of the country to visit the nest of a ground building bird is said to doom it to destruction. Personally I try to avoid going close to such a nest except when really necessary for I greatly dislike to add to the many dangers which already surround the little home. But foxes have many good points which we sometimes overlook when speaking of their evil deeds they eat great numbers of wild mice so destructive to the crops and young trees and possibly to birds as well. I've watched them for hours when they did nothing but catch grasshoppers and it is well known that at certain times and places the much hated woodchuck forms a considerable part of the fox's diet. Not long ago I surprised a fox as he was eating a very large woodchuck. When he saw me he ran off with his prey but I shouted at him and he dropped it. He had probably killed it the day before eaten a part of it and buried the rest for it was rigid and had evidently just been taken from the ground. Bears in the United States probably harmed the birds very little. They are usually too slow of movement to capture anything that can fly and the damage they do in this direction is probably limited to the devouring of eggs in nests which they happen to stumble upon. That at certain times and places bears may menace a colony of birds is pointed out by Dr. Charles H. Townsend who has kindly called my attention to Captain Cartwright's Journal of June 18, 1777 where it is recorded that polar bears were killed and their stomachs found to be filled with the eggs of eider ducks. Raccoons eat a wide variety of food of which in most places young birds and birds eggs probably constitute only a small part. I doubt if they often capture full grown wild birds waterfowl sitting on their nests may suffer in certain localities and perhaps raccoons occasionally capture birds on their roosts at night. Comparatively slow moving creatures found to fruit ripe corn, insects, crawfish, frogs, wild mice and domestic poultry they would as a rule be likely to destroy wild birds nests only when they happened accidentally to find them. I once had two raccoons in a large pen in which I had placed a tree for them to climb. One morning having a live crow and no special place for him I put him in the pen with the raccoons. He flew about, made himself at home and his hosts seemed barely interested in him. 10 minutes after dark I went to see if everything was all right and found nothing left of the crow but his feathers. A raccoon had probably climbed the tree after the bird had gone to roost and either captured him where he slept or caused him to blunder to the ground in the dark. Practically all members of the weasel tribe including skunks and mink are enemies of birds. Most of them will eat the young and sometimes the eggs. Weasels are probably very destructive to birds since they are extremely active and fearless wonderful climbers and in the wild state almost wholly carnivorous. Moreover, they seem to kill for the love of killing whether they are hungry or not. A fact testified to by many a farmer whose poultry yard has been visited by these bloodthirsty creatures. Weasels hunt by scent like hounds and cover great distances in a day as anyone can prove for himself if he will try to follow the trail of one through the snow. To a certain extent however, they are the friends of wild birds since they often kill other creatures such as mice, rats and squirrels which are also enemies of birds. A lady in Cornish, New Hampshire tells me that she once saw a weasel chasing captured chipmunk in an oak tree near her house and then leaped some 10 feet to the ground with the victim in its mouth. A year or two ago the old farmhouse in which we are living had become infested with rats when one autumn morning a white weasel or ermine appeared in the wood shed. For a day or two after that there was a terrible commotion in the walls and ceilings as the weasel chased his squeaking prey from one stronghold to another to finally kill them after a last desperate scuffle. Then when all the rats had been killed or driven away the weasel came into the house and made himself at home. Mrs. Baines was kind to him and he soon became tamed taking food from her hand and coming up into her lap to drink milk from a saucer. He stayed until spring when he left the house never to return. In spite of the good service as they perform however I should not consider weasels desirable neighbors for one who was trying to attract birds to the home grounds. Minks and skunks are probably much less destructive to bird life. In the first place neither of them climbs to any extent and their diet is more varied. The mink operates chiefly along streams and feeds very largely on fish, frogs and other aquatic creatures. Nevertheless Audubon states that in his day the mink in the salt marshes of the south lived chiefly on marsh hens and sharp tail finches which they captured by springing upon them as a cat would do. It is also known that they kill young wild ducks and Mr. William Brewster reports the destruction of a colony of bank swallows by mink. Skunks are much slower in their movements than their cousins the weasels and probably do much less harm to the birds. They seldom attempt to climb and on the ground they are neither clever enough to stalk a bird nor quick enough to run out and catch one. What damage they do is chiefly confined to the eggs and young of birds which nest on the ground even so I should not regard the skunk as a desirable tenant in a bird preserve. Wolverines like bears probably destroy such nests as they accidentally find but these animals are not numerous enough to constitute a serious danger to bird life. Red squirrels are persistent robbers of the nests of small birds in spite of the fact that this is disputed by certain well-known authorities. That some red squirrels do not have the nest robbing habit is quite possible if not probable but the fact remains that as devours of eggs and young red squirrels have few if any equals. The first time I ever saw a red squirrel interfere with a bird's nest was many years ago. I was attracted by the frantic cries of a pair of scarlet tenagers which had a nest in a pine tree in the garden. I rushed out to see what the matter was and discovered a red squirrel calmly seated on the edge of the tenager's nest and eating one of the eggs. He held it in his paws as he would a nut and he was losing some of the white which trickled from his jaws. I drove him away but he soon returned and I felt obliged to shoot him. The first creature of any kind which I had shot in 15 years. Since then I've known so many nests to be destroyed by red squirrels that I will not allow one of these animals in my garden or in any other place where I am trying to attract birds. My friend Frederick H. Conard, a trained ornithologist and a careful observer has many times seen red squirrels destroy the homes of birds. Such destruction has been seen by many other naturalists some of whom have seen red squirrels bite off the heads of young birds and eat out the brains as they would eat the meat out of a nut. Gray squirrels as a rule are not so destructive but there is positive proof that some of them at least destroyed birds' nests. And when they become numerous in a particular locality and when other food becomes scarce probably they do not hesitate to eat either eggs or nestlings. Chipped monks often destroy the nests of birds which build on or near the ground or in artificial arbors and have been seen carrying off young birds in their mouths. Usually they do not climb enough to disturb birds which make their homes in trees. Flying squirrels are gentle little creatures which probably seldom if ever destroy eggs or young birds though they often make their homes and deserted birds' nests in holler trees and even in nest boxes. Muskrats are said to eat the eggs of birds nesting near water and in the marshes but though I have lived where muskrats were plentiful I've never seen any evidence of it. That common rats are often very destructive to the eggs and young of domestic poultry is well known and there seems to be no good reason to believe that they would spare any young wild birds which they found unprotected. They are excellent climbers our native black rat being almost the equal of a squirrel in this respect. Whether our wild mice and shrews are destructive to bird life or not is a question on which we have little information. They are all more or less carnivorous and white-footed mice at least are wonderful climbers using their tails as well as their clever little feet. The door mouse of Europe is known to be destructive to birds and it would be rather strange if creatures so similar in other habits were entirely guiltless of nest robbing. Much of what has been said about raccoons may be said with equal truth about opossums. While not among the principal enemies of birds it is safe to say that they destroy practically all nests which they discover in their daily search for food. Many birds prey more or less upon other birds but comparatively few seriously reduce the bird population. Strikes especially northern strikes in winter are sometimes very destructive to small birds. Some observers state that strikes make a specialty of killing European sparrows and to whatever extent they do this they are friends of our native birds but that they do not confine themselves to sparrows there is plenty of evidence. In the village of Meriden, New Hampshire where we make special efforts to attract birds back feeding them in winter strikes cause us a lot of trouble. One winter we fed great numbers of pine grovespeaks. They are naturally fearless birds and became very tame under kindly treatment. The strikes were so bold that they would attack the grovespeaks under our very noses. A neighbor, Mr. Lewis Stickney who fed a large block of birds saw a strike killed two in his garden. One of these was feeding on the window sill under the roof of the piazza. Though the strike was possibly an inch and a half the longer of the two it could hardly have been so heavy as the plump well fed grovespeak yet the butcher bird actually carried off its victim. After carrying it for a few feet he dropped it in the snow, picked it up, dropped it again and then perhaps getting a farmer grip carried it for fully 400 feet before disappearing. I have been obliged to shoot several strikes in my own garden where they come for the chickadees and other small birds which we always have in numbers. I once saw a strike pursue a chickadee from point to point in the bushes until the little titanus lost his head and flew out over the open country. The strike was after him instantly and quickly overtook him and bore him to the earth. And it is very apparent that the small birds know their enemy and fear him. As soon as he has seen the pine grovespeaks they fly up in alarm and scatter to the four winds but when some chickadee gives the frightened squawk which in winter usually means a strike nearly all the other chickadees freeze wherever they happen to be. In a food house the window box are in the shrubbery and they often remain rigid for as much as five minutes or more allowing us to go close up and photograph them with the camera only a few inches away. Grackles are well known to be persistent robbers of nests where there are large colonies of these strange faced yellow-eyed birds it is probable that many nestling songsters are taken to feed the young grackles. That blue jays are even more destructive is the belief of many observers. One famous ornithologist told me recently that it was his private opinion that every individual blue jay was a nest robber and if he is even nearly correct the loss of bird life from this one cause alone must be considerable for in the greater part of Eastern North America the blue jay is a common bird. Crows useful as they are at most seasons often get the nest robbing habit and when they do they become a source of great distress and disaster to the small birds. A few of these like the kingbird and red-winged blackbird seemingly by the great vigor of their attacks are able to drive the crows away but many others fail to do this and their nests are pillaged with impunity. Many a time in the breeding season have I seen a crow sneaking through the trees and bushes where he had no legitimate business evidently hunting for birds nests but with no positive evidence against him until the frantic cries of parent birds call attention to the thief flying off with the nestlings in his bill. Not long ago a crow came into a garden on the main street of Meridan and was seen flying off with his bill filled to overflowing with young robins. He had carried off the whole brood at once not all crows perhaps have the nest robbing habit but those which do are not only destructive themselves but may possibly spread the habit among their brethren. Some of the owls also are destructive to smaller birds but usually their vices are not unmixed with virtues for instance the great horned owl probably sometimes kills crows and grouse and other useful birds is a notorious destroyer of skunks and probably weasels and other bird enemies. The screech owl undoubtedly kills many small birds some no doubt while they are asleep on their roosts others are probably dragged from their nests from the wing and tail feathers often found in the nests of screech owls it would seem that they capture a good many flickers but of the birds of prey in this country Cooper's hawk and the sharp shinned hawk are perhaps all things considered the very worst not only does each individual kill and devour a great number of small birds but these hawks are common over a wide range and thus constitute a serious check upon the increase of other birds. There are several other kinds of hawks the duck hawk for example which are just as savage and individually just as destructive but they are uncommon and therefore have but slight effect on the bird population of the country. The sharp shinned is a small silent fast-flying hawk that suddenly appears seemingly from nowhere descends like a flash of lightning upon some small bird in the grass or dashes into the foliage of a tree or bush to emerge a moment later with a limp song spare thrush or other little songster in his talons. In a field close to my house I saw a sharp shinned hawk hedge and kill a blue jay almost as large as itself and several times I've shot one of these birds as he was pursuing bird guests in my garden. Dr. A.K. Fisher the great authority on American birds of prey reports that he has examined the stomachs of 159 sharp shinned hawks. 52 of them happened to be empty but of the 107 which contain any food that were poultry or game birds in six and other birds in 99. It is true that six of these hawks had also eaten mice and that five had eaten insects but this does not alter the fact that the principle food of practically all those hawks consisted of birds. The habits of Cooper's hawk are much the same as those of the sharp shinned and he is worse simply because he is larger more destructive to poultry and needs more birds to satisfy his appetite. I once examined the stomachs of five Cooper's hawks a female and her four young in one day and every one of them contain parts of small birds. Most of our hawks are very useful but many of them suffer severely for the sins of these too. Snapping turtles which often grow to a large size are said to be destructive to waterfowl on ponds and rivers. I've been told by poultry keepers that these powerful reptiles will seize ducks by the legs and drag them under the water. Mr. E. A. Quarles, an officer of the American Game Protective and Propagation Association told me of a snapping turtle which he knew had killed 15 young wood ducks and Mr. CH Pease of Canaan, Connecticut showed me a photograph of a full grown duck which he and his wife had seen mangled and killed by a snapping turtle. The duck was feeding with its head under the water and the reptile seized the head in its powerful jaws and crushed it. Snakes are notorious devours of young birds. They are splendid climbers and thus are able to rob nests, built in trees and bushes as well as those on the ground. The skulls of snakes are loosely put together and the muscular tissue which finds them is very elastic. This permits them to be stretched to an almost unbelievable extent and is the secret of a snake's ability to swallow creatures much larger than his own head. I once caught a milk snake at a cat bird's nest with a fully fledged young cat bird just disappearing down its throat. Needless to say, the meal was interrupted. The snake which I afterwards measured was 27 inches long. The common black snake perhaps because of its large size is one of the most destructive. Some years ago I was approaching a clearing in the woods when I heard two parents song sparrows uttering frantic cries and as I came up I saw a large black snake make off and disappear under a pile of brush. Close to the point where I had first seen it lay a fledgling song sparrow which the snake had just prepared for swallowing. Its body seemed to have been squeezed out until it was long and narrow and it was wet with the slimy saliva with which some snakes covered their prey before swallowing it. Large bullfrogs have been known to swallow young birds but I do not believe that they are anywhere a serious menace to bird life. Pike and certain other large fish sometimes capture waterfowl and at certain times and places may be very destructive. Edward Howe, four bush once saw a pied billed greeb which was watching a hawk spring out of the water to escape a pickerel which had tried to seize it by the feet. One might think that with so many natural enemies and with the wholesale destruction of bird life by the elements, there would soon be no birds left. Yet it is a fact that all the storms that sweep the earth and all the natural enemies including savage people would seldom make any lasting impression on the normal bird population if it were not for civilized man and his works. To be sure, some kinds of birds become very much reduced in numbers owing to severe storms but these very disastrous storms do not occur every year and in the meantime, the natural increase makes up the losses and among the birds and their natural enemies nature preserves so nice a balance that as a rule, no one species gets very much ahead of another until civilized man steps in. Civilized man has many needs and many desires and displays great ingenuity in supplying the needs and gratifying the desires. When these needs or desires involve the destruction of animal life the fine balance which would otherwise be preserved by nature is up to be destroyed and the next chapter will tell some of the ways by which civilized man becomes directly and indirectly perhaps the most dangerous of all bird enemies. End of chapter three. Chapter four of Wild Bird Guests by Ernest Baines. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Destruction of birds by man. Savage tribes not influenced by civilization seldom cause a serious decrease in the numbers of birds about them. They usually kill only what they need for their own immediate use as food and clothing and to a smaller extent ornament and even though they may not be restrained by feelings of humanity or desire to be provident their weapons are usually so crude that they cannot inflict whole sale destruction upon any species. Sometimes as in the case of the Eskimo they gather large quantities of the eggs of certain kinds of birds but usually these birds are present in such vast numbers. The Eskimo population is so small and the other bird enemies so few that know noticeable impression is made upon the colonies of little ox and other birds whose eggs are taken. The wind civilized man creates a market for the flesh or plumage of the birds hunted by the savage. The latter is often urged to help to supply that market then he may become a very dangerous enemy of the birds when he has supplied his own needs. His work is not done, it is never done. He has those big markets to supply and the more birds he kills the more he will be paid for so it is to his advantage to kill all he can and he goes on killing until there are no more birds to kill or until for some reason there is no more demand for them and therefore it no longer pays him to kill them. The head hunting natives of Borneo and other islands of the same group have hunted and killed the wonderful birds of paradise to supply feathers for women's hats until some species are extinct and all others in danger of extinction. But as destroyers of bird life civilized men are infinitely more dangerous than savages their most peaceful activities mean serious interference with the birds. They begin to clear the land of the forests growing upon it and the homes of millions of birds go down before the axe. They drain the marshes and vast numbers of other birds are not only driven out of their homes but are deprived of their favorite feeding grounds. They erect lighthouses which every year lure thousands of birds to their destruction. The light on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor has been responsible for a great loss of bird life. It is said that on one morning soon after its erection there were picked up at its base 1,400 birds which had been killed the night before. The thousands of miles of telegraph, telephone, electric light and trolley wires stretched in every direction across civilized countries kill many birds which accidentally fly against them. More than once I have picked up dead snipe immediately below telegraph wires and a neighbor recently picked up a badly wounded woodcock beneath the telephone wire in his garden. Tall wire fences are another cause of destruction close to a small enclosure 100 feet square and surrounded by wire netting. Six feet high I picked up in one summer five dead or wounded birds. The eight and a half foot wire fence surrounding the Corbin Game Preserve in New Hampshire probably accounts for the lives of many birds every year. I walked around it one day and in the 27 miles I flushed a number of roughed grouse. Five of them dashed right into the fence. Some of them with such force as to leave tufts of feathers clinging to the wires. None of these birds happened to kill itself but employees of the Corbins tell me that they have many times picked up dead grouse along the fence. A few days ago a boy working on the road near the park brought me a dying hermit thrush which he thought had been injured in this way. Then civilized man is chiefly responsible either directly or indirectly for the terrible forest fires which not only destroy the homes and food supply of millions of birds but at times as in the nesting season must cause the immediate destruction of all young birds within the burning area and probably many of the old ones as well. Perhaps even greater destruction is wrought by the great autumn fires which lure hosts of migrants to their doom. They become bewildered and fall into the flames. Not long ago Mr. Nathan C. Schaefer superintendent of public instruction made an earnest appeal to the school children of Pennsylvania for help in the prevention of forest fires. He pointed out many of the evils of such fires and among them the fact that they destroy all the birds nests and their eggs and the young birds. Of course much of this destruction is not to be avoided. We must clear the land in order that we may have farms and cities. We must drain the marshes for the same reason and as a matter of public health and the lighthouses, telegraph wires and fences follow as a matter of course. Fires are unnecessary and often avoidable but even these are generally the result of accident and are comparatively seldom set with any intention to injure the birds. Nor are men to blame for killing such birds as they actually need for food. The early settlers were obliged to hunt in order to live and waterfowl and what are commonly known as game birds played an important part in saving our ancestors from starvation. In those early days while ducks and geese, while turkeys, while pigeons, grouse and quail were here in countless numbers and as the number of people in the country was for a long time comparatively small the birds they took for food were never missed from the numberless flocks and covies which dotted the waters and swarmed in the forests. In fact, for many years the settlers might have been counted among the friends of the birds because they also killed off mountain lions, wild cats, wolves, foxes, raccoons, opossums and other natural enemies that would doubtless have destroyed more birds than were taken by the hunters. But gradually, very gradually at first the tide changed against the birds. As more and more people thronged to our shores more and more food was needed to sustain them. Birds were easy to get and cheap to buy and they were killed and sold. Hundreds of towns and cities grew up, great markers were established and more and more gunners took the field every year in order to supply those markets. Professional game dealers came into existence and professional market gunners took up their trade and saw to it that they were well supplied with birds. At first the game dealers would not buy more than could be used within a few days that is before it's spoiled but presently the system of cold storage was invented and there seemed to be no limit to the quantity which would be bought and stored away. Another class of men, the sportsmen, also began to kill the birds not because they actually needed them for food but because they found pleasure and recreation in hunting them. Nor were the game birds the only ones to suffer with the coming of certain fashions and dress came a demand for bird plumage for women's hats and another class of bird killers known as plume hunters sprang into existence. These men made a practice of shooting any kind of bird for which the milleners had a market. At one time it was grebes at another gulls and turns, snowy herons or bright colored songbirds like orioles and scarlet tannagers. Two supplied this ever increasing army of shooters, great gun factories were established and the ingenuity of many inventors was applied to the making of more effective guns, weapons with which men could kill more birds. The old flintlock was replaced with a more reliable gun discharged by means of a cap. The muzzle loading gun gave way to a breech loading gun which could be fired three times as fast. Then came the double barreled breech loader nearly twice as deadly as the single barreled and this was followed by the pump gun and automatic shotgun said to be about 10 times as effective as the old muzzle loader. Before these weapons in the hands of thousands of men, the wild fowl disappeared like snow before a summer wind, some of them never to return. The great ark of flightless seabird inhabiting the coasts and islands of the North Atlantic was the first to become extinct. From early times it had been the victim of attacks by voyagers and fishermen who killed it for its flesh, feathers, and oil. The fact that it nested in large colonies and that it could not fly resulted in its being destroyed in great numbers. It held its own fairly well, however, until its plumage came into demand for feather beds when it disappeared. No living specimen has been seen since 1842. The Labrador duck was the next to go, but in this case the cause of extinction is not known. Probably it was never a very numerous species. The gunners may have had something to do with its disappearance for about the middle of last century it was often seen in the markets. It was not, however, considered very desirable for food and it is hardly likely that there was sufficient demand for it to endanger its existence. Possibly it was wiped out by some disease such as the epidemic which has recently played such havoc among the wild ducks and other marsh birds in Utah in which we shall speak of elsewhere. But whatever the cause, no living Labrador duck has been seen since 1871. The extermination of the passenger pigeon, however, was wholly due to the selfish greed of man. It is said that in the early part of last century this was probably the most numerous bird on the North American continent in order to get a faint idea of the numbers of the passenger pigeon in the time of Alexander Wilson. The ornithologists let us imagine if we can just one such flock as he observed near Frankfurt, Kentucky about 1808. The birds moved in a column whose front was more than a mile in width and flying at the rate of a mile a minute. They took four long hours to pass. Wilson, who was an accurate observer after a careful calculation, estimated that this one flock contained at least 2 billion, 230 million, 272,000 pigeons. Audubon also gives a grand account of the armies of the passenger pigeon as observed by him in 1813 while writing from Henderson to Louisville. He noticed the pigeons flying over in even greater numbers than usual and dismounted that he might attempt to count the number of detached flocks which passed him in an hour. In 21 minutes he gave up the task as impracticable. He says, I traveled on and still the air was literally filled with pigeons. The light of the noonday sun was obscured as if by an eclipse and the continual buzz of the wings had a tendency to allow my senses to repose. It would seem that nothing man could do would greatly diminish such countless multitudes as these, especially when Audubon assures us that they at least doubled their number and not infrequently quadrupled them yearly. But alas, the pigeons were easy to get. They had a market value and it was not against the law to kill them. And this combination would have ensured their extermination had there been 100 times as many. The fact that they roosted and nested in vast densely packed colonies, greatly simplified matters for the destroyers. And though the birds were killed wherever they were seen, the great slaughters occurred at the roosts and at the nesting grounds. In the time of Wilson and Audubon, one single colony of pigeons would sometimes occupy a forest 40 miles long and perhaps three to four wide every available tree of which would be laden to the breaking point with the nests. Wilson counted upwards of 90 nests in a single tree and some trees contained more than a hundred. Each nest soon contained one or two fat squabs. Every morning the parent birds started for their feeding grounds, vast forests of beach or oak trees, perhaps possibly two or 300 miles away. And from noon until late in the afternoon, they came pouring in with well laden crops. Then the pigeon harvest was ripe and armies of people, men, women and children from the surrounding country came in to gather it. Some brought tents that they might camp upon the scene and others came with sacks, baskets and barrels in which to collect the spoils and horses and wagons with which to remove them. Then began a fearful massacre in which no one thought of anything save how he could secure the greatest number of pigeons in the shortest space of time. Some used guns, others clubs or long poles with which to beat down the frantic pigeons and still others suffocated the birds with pots of burning sulfur. The fat squabs in the nests were considered even more desirable prizes than the old birds and scores of men spent their entire time in throwing to the ground back means of long poles all the nests within reach. Others for whom this method was too slow attacked the trees with axes bringing down a hundred nests at once. Eyewitnesses testified that the spectacle was an awful one. Savage Indians instilled more savage white men with many women and children all engaged in killing birds. With hands and faces smeared with blood and with feathers sticking in their clothing many of them looked scarce human in the uncertain light as they ran back and forth over the slippery ground shouting at the tops of their voices in order to make themselves heard above the thundering roar created by the wings of millions of pigeons. All night long this awful swatter continued and at dawn the woods were seen to be carpeted with dead and dying birds. Sneaking away through the shadows of the woods could be seen the dim forms of mountain lions, foxes, wild cats, skunks and other night prowlers and then in the air would appear eagles and hawks and vultures coming for their share of the feast. The slaughtered pigeons were gathered up and piled in heaps until everyone had all he could cart away and then droves of hogs sometimes driven from long distances were turned into the woods to fatten on the remainder. Year after year the massacres were repeated. The unfortunate pigeons being followed from one breeding ground to another and that they were not exterminated years ago is due solely to the fact that the remaining few became so scattered that it no longer paid anyone to pursue them. In addition to those destroyed at the breeding grounds hundreds of thousands of old birds were trapped in clap nets, upwards of 300 sometimes being taken in a single hall and one man being able to catch perhaps 6000 in a day. Many were sent by schooner loads to New York where they were sold at one time for one cent a piece and they were so cheap in some places that the hogs were fed on them. They have gone and America has nothing to show for her loss unless it be additional proof of the fact that no bird no matter how numerous or how prolific and long hold its own if it is repeatedly attacked on its breeding grounds. Several attempts were made to save the passenger pigeons by rearing flocks of them in confinement but these attempts served only to postpone for a few years the absolute extinction of the bird. A flock was established at Woods Hole, Massachusetts for a time by Professor C.O. Whitman of Chicago University and another occupied at large cage in the Cincinnati Zoological Park where I have several times visited what is believed to have been the last survivor of its race. This bird a female was in captivity for more than a quarter of a century and died only recently. The Eskimo perlute is now believed to be extinct or nearly so and again the selfishness of man is to blame. This perlute was as its other common name. Doe bird implies a delicious table foul and its demand for the market was the chief cause of its extermination. Though its actual numbers were probably never so large as those of the passenger pigeon they must have been very great. Dense flocks of these birds said to contain billions were often reported at points along the Atlantic coast during the earlier half of last century and an immense flight in Labrador in 1833 actually reminded Audubon of the passenger pigeon itself. The Eskimo perlute nested from Alaska to Labrador the favorite breeding place being the Bering Grounds of Northwestern Canada. They went to in Argentina and Patagonia and every fall the birds appeared in almost unbelievable flocks in Labrador and Newfoundland and the Magdalene Islands where the fishermen killed great numbers and salted them down in barrels. The Kurloos then proceeded to Nova Scotia where they left the land and headed for South America by way of the West Indies. On the Magdalene Islands and perhaps elsewhere they roosted in dense masses on the high beach and men armed with sticks and carrying lanterns to dazzle the birds slaughtered them by wholesale. Nor did they receive any better treatment on the New England coast where after buffeting a cold northeast storm until they were exhausted they alighted in misplaced confidence to rest. Their arrival was the signal for men and boys to chase and beat them down with clubs or for the market hunters and other gunners to shoot them as long as one remained on shore. In 1872 they were killed in such numbers on Cape Cod that the boys sold them as low as six cents apiece. Even at such prices some of the market hunters sold hundreds of dollars worth. It is little wonder that the Kurloos at last were determined to shun the New England coast as a deadly region to be visited only at night and then only when they were too exhausted to continue their flight. After spending the winter in South America the Doberts went back to their northern homes by a different route by way of the Gulf States and in the spring months were seen in great numbers on the Western Prairies and in the Mississippi Valley but they feared no better in the West than they did in New England and where mass occurred wherever they went. If one was wounded and cried out many of its companions would at once come and hover over it and this habit must have helped in its destruction by cowboys and others. The Eskimo Kurloos was doomed. Its numbers began to diminish rather slowly at first but rapidly later on. The great flights became less and less frequent and smaller and smaller in size until at last they ceased and the bird is now believed to be practically extinct. Specimens are still shot occasionally an individual was taken as late as September the 5th, 1913 at East Orleans, Massachusetts. Besides these birds which have gone forever there are a number more which have been persecuted until they have disappeared from the greater part of their former range and in some cases are so reduced in numbers that they will probably soon be extinct. Among these are the trumpeter swan, the whooping crane and the Carolina paracet. The last named is believed by some authorities to be extinct already but Frederick H. Cunard in a recent visit to Florida satisfied himself that there are a very few left in that state. He did not see the birds but by carefully sifting the evidence of a number of residents he learned of the existence of at least seven individuals. According to Frank M. Chapman the extermination of the paracet was due chiefly to four causes. He says first it was destructed to fruit orchards and for this reason was killed by agriculturists. Second it was trapped and bagged in enormous numbers by professional bird catchers. Third it has been killed in myriads for its plumage and fourth it has been wantonly slaughtered by so-called sportsmen. In short in the present century the paracet has always disappeared soon after its haunts were invaded by a civilized man. There are many other birds which have been reduced in numbers to the danger point that I will mention but two more the great white heron and the snowy egret both of which were once distributed over a wide range extending from Northern South America to New England and which were numerous in many places such as Florida and the Mississippi Valley. They had been extirpated over a very large part of this range and that they are not extinct as due to the passing of rigid laws for their protection to the setting aside as bird refuges by executive order certain suitable tracts of lands where the birds might live and nest in peace and by the patriotic efforts of a few private individuals who have established sanctuaries for the herons. The curse of these birds was the beautiful plumes or egrets which they wore only in the nesting season and which for this reason have often been called the bridal plumes. The story of the destruction of these herons for their plumage is perhaps the most disheartening and certainly the saddest of any connected with the killing of wild birds in this country. The herons nested in large colonies and the men employed by the feather dealers to obtain the plumes would visit these colonies when the nesting season was at its height and when the mother love of the parent birds was so strong that no amount of shooting would make them leave the place. Here usually with small noiseless rifles the herons were shot down as they came in from the feeding ground with food for their young as they sat upon their nests or sometimes as they came in attracted by a wounded comrade tied to a stake in the swamp as a decoy. The plumes were then stripped from their backs and the bodies left to rot. Sad as this is it is by no means the saddest part of the story. Young birds which occupied most of the nests at this season and which were of course entirely dependent on their parents for food were left to starve to death after pitifully calling sometimes for days for their parents who lay in the swamp beneath with their backs torn out that women might wear the looted plumes in their hats. If anything could be more outrageous than this surely it is the recent massacre of birds on the island of Laysan. In order to give an intelligent idea of this affair it is necessary to say a few words about the island itself. To most of us the word Laysan means little if anything more than a tiny dot on the map indicating the position of a wee coral island in the Pacific about 800 miles northwest by west from Honolulu. But to the men who have been there the mere mention of it brings to the mind a hundred pictures representing the joys and sorrows the festivals and the tragedies in the lives of myriad birds which comprise perhaps the most unique community of feathered beings on the face of the earth. It is one of many tiny islets, rocks and reefs which like so many truant children straggle off from the main Hawaiian group in the direction of Japan. Specks of land insignificant enough perhaps when judged by human standards but great residential centers and nurseries for the unnumbered sea fowl which call them home. The great white albatross king of the Pacific whom we see on tireless wing levying tribute on the very borders of his domains carries in his brain a chart of these islands and he has his capital at Laysan. How long this islet has been inhabited by its feathered population no man can tell but doubtless for ages. Small as it is barely three miles long it was a few years ago the home of millions of birds including five species found nowhere else in the world. Practically every square yard was occupied and thousands of late comers were obliged to go away because there was no room for them. In fact there are so many bird homes on Laysan that the tenants are obliged to live in tenement fashion some underground in burrows others on the surface and others still in the bushes above. And quite unlike other bird homes these are used all the year round not by the same tenants to be sure for at the very moment when the families of one species are ready to move out those of another species are waiting to move in. There is no quiet season in Laysan it is the scene of strange and ceaseless activity from year's end to year's end forever. This in a general way is the impression I got from a story told me by Mr. Walter K. Fisher the ornithologist who formed one of the party aboard the U.S. Fish Commission steamer Albatross which from March to August 1902 was engaged in deep sea explorations among the Hawaiian islands. Standing on a pile of phosphate rock not far from a little pond one could overlook the largest colony of white albatrosses on the island and probably the largest in the world. At certain times of the day this whole section was literally white with the snowy plumage of these great sea birds actually numbering more than a million individuals. Overhead one might see and hear tens of thousands of turns apparently all screaming at once and creating such a volume of bewildering noise that one was obliged to shout in order to make oneself heard. In another part of the island there were colonies of the black-footed albatross which while not so numerous would have been considered remarkable almost anywhere else but in Lausanne. Birds, eggs were everywhere and it was practically impossible to move about without destroying. Some they were in the grass and the bushes on the ground by hundreds of thousands and in many places it was difficult to walk on account of the burrows of petrels and sheer waters into which one would sink to the knees at almost every step. There were birds overhead, birds underfoot peering from every bush and from behind every tusk of grass scuttling about over the ground after food or with flopping wings attempting to lead the stranger from the vicinity of their homes. Red-tailed, tropic birds, boobies, manna, warbirds, rails, teal, bristle-fied curlews, golden plovers, trun stones, honey-eaters, finches and millerbirds each species busy with its own affairs which not infrequently involved interference with the affairs of others. And more remarkable perhaps even than the great numbers of the birds was their tameness. The great albatrosses would literally meet a visitor halfway and gather about him, gently examining the texture of his clothing with their bills and in other ways seeming to take as much interest in his affairs as he did in theirs. Mr. Fisher's experience with the liaison rail will give some idea of how trustful of man birds may be if they never have caused to regard him as an enemy. This tiny brown bird is flightless. Its wings are not used at all except when the rail is hopping to a perch or hurrying very fast at which times they are spread somewhat as a domestic foul's wings are spread under similar circumstances. On one occasion, Mr. Fisher was about to photograph the nest and eggs of one of these birds and for this purpose had parted and brought back the junk of stems which hid it from view. As he was about to make the exposure and with the camera only two feet away the little rail hopped back into the nest and in a business-like way began to cover herself up with the soft lining. Mr. Fisher photographed her several times but then desired to get the picture of the nest and eggs. He lifted her off but at once she slipped back and defeated his purpose. Then with the black cloth he chased her away into the tall grass a short distance and hastened back to the camera but the little rail as though determined that he should not get that picture if she could help it came skipping back and was into the nest again before the exposure could be made. It would seem that here at least was a colony of birds that need not fear the destructive hand of man. They had sought a refuge hundreds of miles from civilization and by their presence and their activities had made an insignificant little island into one of the wonder spots of the world. Beautiful, trustful, and defenseless these inoffensive creatures make a direct appeal to every decent instinct but as far as the plume hunters were concerned the appeal was made in vain. In the spring of 1909 a party of 23 of these cold-blooded men landed on Lausanne and began a work of slaughter which for heartless cruelty has perhaps never been equalled by anyone else engaged in this cruel business. Apparently it was their intention to kill all the birds on the island and they actually succeeded in butchering 300,000 of these innocent creatures before the United States government in prompt response to a telegram from Professor William A. Bryan of Honolulu sent the revenue cutter fetus and stopped the killing. Sad and almost unbelievable sites greeted Captain Jacobs and the men of the fetus several acres which had been the site of teeming colonies of industrious happy birds were strewn with bones and dead bodies. Carloads of feathers, skins and wings were ready for shipping and thousands of other wings were piled in a shed and it is the bit of truth that many of these wings had been cut from the bodies of living birds which had then been allowed to run away to bleed to death. But the wretches who did this thing I cannot bring myself to call them in went farther than this. They put hundreds of seabirds in a dry cistern and allowed them to slowly starve to death because in starving they would use up the fatty tissue stored next to the skin leaving the skin free from grease and therefore much easier to prepare. These birds were tortured to supply the millinery trade which some people still dare to uphold and the millinery trade required them because thoughtless women insisted on wearing these badges of cruelty in their hats. When I see women wearing the plumage of wild birds I wonder if they have normal brains or indeed whether they have any brains at all. It seems impossible that they should in this day still be ignorant of the misery they are causing and it seems equally impossible that if they do know it they can be so heartless as to uphold and prolong the cruel fashion. Fortunately many good laws have recently been passed in this country to protect the wild birds formally used for millinery purposes and when the other civilized governments aren't ready to cooperate with our own we can have an international law which will practically put a stop to this traffic in wild bird plumage but it cannot be flattering to the women who persist in wearing plumage to realize that it is necessary for men to make laws to force them to give up a cruel practice but it is not the plume hunter alone who is causing our remaining wild birds to disappear. There are many other kinds of hunters of these one of the worst is the so-called sportsman. I use the word so-called to distinguish him from the real sportsman who is one of the best protectors of birds we have. The real sportsman is the man who is fond of the woods and fields and streams and lakes and who when game and fish or a plentiful likes to get a little for himself or a friend but who when game shows signs of decreasing does his best in every way to protect it and ensure its increase. The so-called sportsman often seems to forget that anyone else has an interest in the game. He sometimes acts as though he owned it all and proceeds to take it all or as nearly all of it as he can get. It never seems to occur to him that there is a limit to the number of birds which it is fair for him to shoot even when they are plentiful or that he should refrain entirely from shooting when they are scarce. He fights to prevent the passage of any good law which may be framed with a view to saving the sorely harassed birds if it in any way interferes with his own pleasure. He shoots all the birds the law permits him to even when he knows that the law is unfair to the birds and that they cannot hold their own against it. If there is no law to stop him, he kills all the birds he can and resorts to the use of automatic and pump guns and other unfair weapons because it is not sport but birds that he is trying to get. With such weapons as these in a place where birds are plentiful, a man can kill from 200 to 400 wild ducks or wild geese in a day. The damage which can be inflicted on game birds and waterfowl by this class of gunner has been greatly increased by the invention of the automobile and the powerboat, both of which enable him to hunt over a vastly wider field in a given time than was possible before. As a destroyer of game birds, the market hunter is perhaps the worst of all. Most other gunners go hunting occasionally or for a few days at a time but the market man makes a business of hunting and if the law permits goes out every day as long as there are any birds left to shoot. Of course, he uses the automatic and pump shot guns because with them he can get more birds and more birds to him mean more money. The farmers are to a large extent responsible for the great decrease among our birds of prey. They're not the only ones to blame for it. There are many gunners who cannot resist the temptation to shoot at large, conspicuous birds of any kind but the farmers more than any others perhaps kill hawks and owls more or less systematically because they believe these birds want in all to be destroyers of poultry. In one way it is quite natural that they should believe this it is easy to notice a hawk come down into one's poultry yard and fly away with a hen or even a chicken which one knows by sight and it is easy to appreciate the loss because it is immediate and definite the value of the chicken being known. But it is much less easy to keep in sight that same hawk or another as day after day he picks up mice in the distant fields and though the gain to the farm through the destruction of the mice maybe many times greater than the loss sustained by the killing of the chicken the exact amount of it is not known to the farmer and over he does not get it at once. The one thing that is really clear to him is that a hawk has caused him a loss and without looking any farther he decides to prevent losses of that kind by killing every hawk he sees. When laws are passed to prevent the killing of birds he sees to it that the hawks are not included in the list of birds protected by it and sometimes he goes farther than this and demands that a reward or bounty be paid by the state for every hawk killed. The foreigners who come to our shores from countries where people are not taught to respect the rights of birds are another great menace to our feathered neighbors especially to the songbirds. The lower classes of Italians are among the worst of these offenders and it will help us to understand the problem if we glance at conditions in their own country. In Italy not even songbirds are protected in addition to what we call game birds thrushes, skylarks, gold finches, red stars, siskins, crossbills, woodpeckers, nut hatches, titmice, warbors and scores of others are regarded as game and are sold for food in every market in Italy. As shown in the case of birds hunted for their plumage wherever there is a market to be supplied there will be people willing to supply it and throughout Italy there are thousands of men who do nothing else but catch and kill songbirds to be eaten by their fellow countrymen. Thousands and tens of thousands are offered at from two cents to five cents a piece threaded on strings and sold in bunches as we sell beets or onions. Most of these birds are brought in by professional birdcatchers, some of them are shot some taken with snares or bird line but probably by far the greater number are captured in nets of various kinds. Many of these nets are used in connections with what are known as rocolos. Permanent bird traps established in carefully chosen spots often situated on hillsides in valleys along some natural migration route. Rocolos vary in size and some are more elaborate than others but the essentials are a clump or grove of trees to invite the attention of passing birds, a few little songsters to call and make the place appear home like, a net of fine threads to entangle the victims of this treachery and the fowler who kills the captured birds and sells them to be eaten. The fowler or keeper of the rocola lives close by in a little building which sometimes takes the form of a tower from which he can watch the nets and in which he deposits his catch in a pile on the floor. Hidden from view by the screen of trees hang a number of small cages containing little birds whose eyes have been burned out with red hot wires because blind birds call it more often than those which can see. These wretched little prisoners by their calls and by their song for they sing to at times all unknowingly lure the wild birds to their death. If birds come near but hesitate on the outside trees the fowler by means of a sort of racket thrown through the air makes a sound like the whistling of a hawk's wings and down plunge the frightened songbirds to their doom. As they struggle in the net the fowler comes forth from his hiding place, seizes them roughly, kills them by thrusting a sharpened stick through their heads and tosses their pathetic little bodies on top of the growing heap on the floor of his dwelling. And there are hundreds of such rocolos each of them destroying thousands, many of them tens of thousands of birds during a single migration. Is it any wonder that the Italians have no songbirds of their own? This terrible trait can be carried on now only because many of the migratory birds from other parts of Europe come down through Italy in order to shorten their flight across the Mediterranean. Is it any wonder that ignorant Italian laborers fresh from a country where this sort of thing is not only permitted but encouraged should on landing here make themselves a set of snares and a wad of bird lime by cheap guns and set out to catch and kill anything and everything that wears feathers. They are not necessarily either bad or lawless. Many of them land in this country which they have been taught is the freest in the world probably never doubting that they have at least as much right to kill things here as they had in Italy. They cannot read our books and papers and when they meet a game warden they do not know who he is nor what he is saying. They only understand in a genuine way that he is trying to stop them from doing what they think they have a perfect right to do. They are naturally hot tempered and quick to resent what they believe to be and injustice and serious trouble for the game warden is often the result. I remember a few years ago watching a surgeon removing shot from the face of a policeman who had been shot by an Italian poacher in the Middlesex Fells Reservation near Boston. He had chased the man who deliberately turned around and let him have both barrels. I'm not defending the Italian shooter of songbirds. He is doing wrong and we must absolutely stop him but we shall be able to do this in a wiser, sure way if we understand the kind of man we have to deal with and realize that he is not entirely to blame for his attitude toward our wildlife. In another chapter I shall give some suggestions for dealing with this problem. The niggers and poor white folks of our southern states are even worse than the ignorant foreigners where they slaughter our songbirds, not by scores but by hundreds and sometimes by thousands. Sad to say Robbins and other songsters are still ruthlessly destroyed in many of our southern states they are killed for food and the niggers and poor whites supply the markets. When the Holly Berries are ripe the Robbins gather by tens of thousands to feed upon them and their coming is the signal for every nigger who can afford a $3 gun to get out and shoot them. The Robbins are also very fond of cedar berries and during the winter months where these are plentiful they gather in immense flocks. The fact that they roost in the cedars at night makes possible another form of slaughter. Men and boys with torches each climb a tree while companions with poles and clubs disturb the Robbins and cause them to fly about. Dazzled by the torches the sleepy Robbins fly to the torchbearer who kills them by either pinching their necks or pulling their heads off and drops their bodies into a bag. Three or 400 birds represent a fair night's work for a man and sometimes there are 100 or more men engaged. The contribution of a single southern village in a year will sometimes amount to hundreds of thousands of birds and there are many villages. It is hardly to be wondered at if we fail to see large numbers of Robbins on our lawns in the spring. The ignorant southern niggers are a problem in themselves in the nesting season or out of it it makes no difference to them. In gangs large and small armed with cheap guns and followed by mongrel bird dogs they rake the country killing everything that flies or runs. First of all perhaps they burn over large tracts of land destroying the natural cover for the birds making it easy to pot the few which might otherwise have found shelter at the time and preventing the area from being used as a breeding ground or as a refuge for years to come. Nevertheless, thanks to improved laws to campaigns of education and to a firmer stand taken by the cultivated people of the south matters are much better than they were a few years ago and the outlook for the future is hopeful. Lumber camps and mining camps are often responsible for the local extermination of certain birds. When as often happens such camps are at a considerable distance from a large town it is difficult and expensive to supply them in with fresh beef, mutton or pork and if there are game birds or waterfowl in the vicinity they are sure to suffer. Such birds are killed in large numbers not only to supply immediate needs but for future use so that when an opportunity presents itself the men kill all they can get. A great deal of damage has been done and is still done at certain times and places by the small boy who has not been taught a proper regard for bird life. With their gun, slingshot, trap and snare he can quickly become a terror to the birds within walking distance of his home. And if he adds to these methods of destruction the offense of taking birds eggs he can increase the destruction many fold. Usually I think it is not the boy's fault to a quite natural curiosity to see a close range or to possess certain beautiful things which have attracted his attention has added the joy of proving his quickness and discovery, his cleverness in outwitting or his skill in capturing or killing the object of his desire. His curiosity has not been led into safer channels. He has not been shown more useful ways in which to prove his cleverness and skill. The scientific collector of birds is one against tune popular indignation is often directed or perhaps I should say misdirected because he is occasionally seen shooting birds which other people are not allowed to shoot. I do not collect birds myself and I do not believe in permitting people to collect birds simply because they would like to have collections. But there are in every state certain scientific men who are giving a great deal of time to the study of birds with a view to adding to our knowledge of ornithology. And it is my belief that these men should be permitted to collect. They should I think be allowed to take such birds as are needed and few of them will take more than this. I'm acquainted with many collectors and most of them are not only conscientious gentlemen but loyal supporters of the cause of bird protection. Some of them do not shoot more than a bird or two a year after a reasonable working collection has been made. I know one an enthusiast too who has shot only one bird in two years. One market hunter will kill more birds than all the scientific men in his state put together. Bird enemies for which man is chiefly responsible. In addition to the losses which man inflicts on birds directly he does further damage indirectly through the activities of certain animals for whose present status he is to a greater or less extent responsible. One of these far and away the most destructive is the house cat. She belongs to a family of highly carnivorous animals and as compared with the dog is only about half domesticated. Her wonderful body is specially designed for capturing and overpowering creatures weaker than herself and songbirds seem to be her favorite prey. When they nest in the trees or shrubs or on arbors in the garden her wonderful ability as a climber enables her to invade their nests. When they come to the ground for food or water she lies in wait and springs upon them. She hunts by day and by night and when she is abroad there are few places where birds are safe. Mr. Chapman America's best known ornithologist and the most careful and accurate writer says in our own opinion there are not less than 25 million cats in the United States and there may be twice that number. A house cat has been known to kill 50 birds in a season and a naturalist then whom none is better qualified to judge believes that 500,000 birds are annually killed by cats in New England alone. Apply these figures to the cats and the country at large and the result is appalling. Mabel Osgood Wright, president of the Connecticut Audubon Society and author of Birdcraft, Citizen Bird and other works who has had a wide experience with both birds and cats assures us that the evidence of men and women whose words are incontestable would verify my most radical statement but one fact is beyond dispute if the people of the country insist on keeping cats in the same numbers as that present all the spend of work of federal and state legislation all the labors of game and songbird protective associations all the loving care of individuals and watching and feeding will not be able to save our native birds in many localities. Edward Howe Vorbush, state ornithologist of Massachusetts, a careful writer who is always sure of his ground tells us of the situation in his own state. Nearly a hundred correspondents scattered through all the counties of the state report the cat is one of the greatest enemies of the 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. It is quite true however that some cats do not kill many birds and that some intelligent or hybrid cats may be taught not to kill any. Some cat lovers believe that each cat kills on the average not more than 10 birds a year but I've 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 in a year and that there is one cat on each farm in Massachusetts we have in round numbers 70,000 cats killing 700,000 birds annually. With the material at hand it would be a simple matter for the writer to fill a book with the testimony of conservative people, naturalists, game wardens, owners of bird sanctuaries, yes and avowed cat lovers too all pointing to the fact that cats despite their wonderful beauty of form and movement and their many charming ways are among the most cruel and destructive of all bird enemies. The writer himself has seen not a little of this destructive work on the part of cats, his own and others. He was a cat lover once owned seven attractive cats and knows all their lovable attributes from maybe ability to wistfulness but they were seen devouring young birds and their nests before the eyes of their grief frantic parents. They were seen torturing terraristic and adult birds for which they had lain in wait and when their owner made up his mind that this sort of thing would go on as long as they lived, their death swift and painless removed them from their feathers strewn path. The most destructive cats as a rule are those which either have no owners or whose owners so neglect them that they are obliged to forage for themselves and these constitute a very large proportion of our cat population. Among them are the so-called tramp cats and stray cats with which many parts of our country are overrun. In the city of New York alone, the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals destroys over 50,000 homeless cats a year and it is a disgrace to that wonderful city that the conditions which make such destruction necessary are permitted to exist. In a later chapter, we'll be given some suggestions looking to the possible solution of this very serious problem. Badly trained dogs also at certain times and places are destructive to birds. This is sometimes true of dogs belonging to people living on islands or on the coast and allowed to range over the breeding grounds of seabirds. When not under proper control, such dogs are apt to get the habit of chasing the birds and of driving them off their nests and sometimes they will eat the eggs or young. Dr. Charles H. Townsend tells me that the Eskimo dogs of Labrador, which in summer are termed loose to forage for themselves are often destructive to bird life and probably eat the eggs and young of all species which they find nesting on the ground. Pigs, if not actually born with a taste for eggs and nestlings, soon acquire one and it is safe to say that they never fail to devour such delicacies when an opportunity presents itself. If given free access to a colony of birds which nest on the ground, pigs will gobble up the contents of every nest. It is said that pigs were the chief cause of the extinction of the dodo, a large flightless bird which inhabited the island of Mauritius. Man is also responsible for the presence in this country at least of a European sparrow and the European stalling. The first is and has been for many years a well-known pest and a serious enemy of our native songbirds. Unfortunately, its bad character and offensive habits are too well known to require description and detail, hardy and pugnacious and present in numbers that were baffle a census taker, sparrows often attack and kill our smaller native birds. They can make their bulky nest almost anywhere but seem to prefer nest boxes when these are to be head. In many localities, by reason of their great numbers, they will occupy all the nest boxes with entrance holes large enough to admit them to the exclusion of bluebirds, tree swallows, and other more desirable tenants. So the latter are often forced to leave the little homes which we have put up on purpose for them, leave their favorite haunts in our gardens and orchards and take their chances of finding nesting sites away off in the wilderness perhaps. In the summer when we put out bird bass for our thirsty songbirds down come the sparrows and nothing else in feathers can get near the water. In the winter when we attempt to feed our native birds, the sparrows come in hordes to the exclusion of practically all other species. The end of it is that thousands of people who are anxious to do something to help our native birds become discouraged when they find that the chief result of their efforts is an increase in the size of the local flock of sparrows. If the European sparrows were very useful birds or fine songsters, or if they had unusually beautiful plumage, there would be some compensation for the dearth of native birds which they create. But sad to say usually they are neither useful nor ornamental, on the contrary, they are often very destructive. As Mr. Ned Dearborn points out in his farmer's bulletin, the English sparrows as a pest, it destroys fruit as cherries, grapes, pears and peaches. It also destroys buds and flowers cultivated trees, shrubs and vines. In the garden it eats seeds as they ripen and nips off tender young vegetables, especially peas and lettuce, as they appear above the ground. It damages wheat and other grains, whether newly sown, ripening or in shocks. As a flock of 50 sparrows requires daily the equivalent of a quart of wheat, the annual loss caused by these birds throughout the country is very great. A thorough investigation of the subject by the Department of Agriculture shows that while European sparrows do a certain amount of good by the destruction of insects in summer and of weed seeds in the fall and winter, they do such a vast amount of damage that there is comparatively little to be said in their favor. The European starling threatens to create another problem for the American bird lover. Less than 20 years ago, the range of the starling in this country did not extend beyond the boundaries of New York City. Now the bird has overrun or rather overflown all the surrounding states and may be seen in large flocks at all seasons. Its economic status has not been fully determined yet, but from what I can learn, it seems to be a more useful bird than the European sparrow. It is certainly more pleasing to look at. It has a more pleasant voice and it is comparatively clean and dainty in its habits. Being partial to nest boxes, no doubt it would crowd out our native birds where it not for the fact that many of them having smaller bodies can use entrance holes through which the foreign bird cannot pass. So let us cheer up. The worst is already here. End of chapter four.