 Forward in preface of our vanishing wildlife. This is a LibriVox recording. Our LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Our vanishing wildlife by William T. Hornaday. Forward in preface. Forward. The preservation of animal and plant life and of the general beauty of nature is one of the foremost duties of the men and women of today. It is an imperative duty because it must be performed at once. For otherwise it will be too late. Every possible means of preservation, sentimental, educational, and legislative, must be employed. The present warning issues with no uncertain sound because this great battle for preservation and conservation cannot be won by gentle tones nor by appeals to the aesthetic instincts of those who have no sense of beauty or enjoyment of nature. It is necessary to sound a loud alarm to present the facts in a very strong language backed up by irrefutable statistics and by photographs which tell no lies, to establish the law and enforce it if needs be with a bludgeon. This book is such an alarm call. Its forceful pages remind me of the sounding of the great bells in the watchtowers of the cities of the middle ages which call the citizens to arms to protect their homes, their liberties, and their happiness. It is undeniable that the welfare and happiness of our own and of all future generations of Americans are at stake in this battle for the preservation of nature against the selfishness, the ignorance, or the cruelty of her destroyers. We no longer destroy great works of art. They are treasured and regarded as a priceless value. But we have yet to attain the state of civilization where the destruction of a glorious work of nature, whether it be a cliff, a forest, or a species of mammal or bird, is regarded with equal abhorrence. The whole earth is a poorer place to live in when a colony of exquisite egrets or birds of paradise is destroyed in order that the plumes may decorate the hat of some lady of fashion and ultimately find their way into the rubbish heap. The people of all the New England states are poor when the ignorant whites, foreigners, or negroes of our southern states destroy the robins and other songbirds of the north for a mess of potage. Travels through Europe as well as all over a large part of the North American continent have convinced me that nowhere is nature being destroyed so rapidly as in the United States. Except within our conservation areas an earthly paradise is being turned into an earthly Hades, and it is not savages nor primitive men who are doing this, but men and women who boast of their civilization. Air and water are polluted, rivers and streams serve as sewers and dumping grounds, forests are swept away, and fishes are driven from the streams. Many birds are becoming extinct and certain mammals are on the verge of extermination. Fuller advertisements hide the landscape and in all that disfigure the wonderful heritage of the beauty of nature today we Americans are in the lead. Fortunately the tide of destruction is ebbing and the tide of conservation is coming in. Americans are practical. Like all other northern peoples they love money and will sacrifice much for it, but they are also full of idealism as well as of moral and spiritual energy. The influence of the splendid body of Americans and Canadians who have turned their best forces of mind and language into literature and into political power for the conservation movement is becoming stronger every day. Yet we are far from the point where the momentum of conservation is strong enough to arrest and roll back the tide of destruction and this is especially true with regard to our fast vanishing animal life. The facts and figures set forth in this volume will astonish all those lovers of nature and friends of the animal world who are living in a false or imaginary sense of security. The logic of these facts is inexorable. As regards our birds and mammals, the failures of supposed protection in America under a system of free shooting are so glaring that we are confident this exposure will lead to sweeping reforms. The author of this work is no amateur in the field of wildlife protection. His ideas concerning methods of reform are drawn from long and successful experience. The states which are still behind in this movement may well give serious heed to his summons and pass the new laws that are so urgently demanded to save the vanishing remnant. The New York Zoological Society, which is cooperating with many other organizations in this great movement, sends forth this work in the belief that there is no one who is more ardently devoted to the great cause or rendering more effective service in it than William T. Hornaday. We believe that this is a great book destined to exert a worldwide influence to be translated into other languages and to arouse the defenders and lovers of our vanishing animal life before it is too late. Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the New York Zoological Society, 10th of December, 1912. Preface. The writing of this book has taught me many things. Beyond question, we are exterminating our finest species of mammals, birds and fishes according to the law. I am appalled by the massive evidence proving that throughout the entire United States and Canada, in every state and province, the existing legal system for the preservation of wildlife is fatally defective. There is not a single state in our country from which the killable game is not being rapidly and persistently shot to death, legally or illegally, very much more rapidly than it is breeding, with extermination for the most of it close in sight. This statement is not open to argument, for millions of men know that it is literally true. We are living in a fool's paradise. The rage for wildlife slaughter is far more prevalent today throughout the world than it was in 1872, when the buffalo butchers paved the prairies of Texas and Colorado with festering carcasses. From one end of our continent to the other, there is a restless, resistless desire to kill, kill. I have been shocked by the accumulation of evidence showing that all over our country and Canada, fully nine-tenths of our protective laws have practically been dictated by the killers of the game, and that in all save a very few instances, the hunters have been exceedingly careful to provide open seasons for slaughter, as long as any game remains to kill. And yet, the game of North America does not belong wholly and exclusively to the men who kill. The other ninety-seven percent of the people have vested rights in it, far exceeding those of the three percent. Posterity has claims upon it that no honest man can ignore. I am now going to ask both the true sportsmen and the people who do not kill wild things to awake, and do their plain duty in protecting and preserving the game and other wildlife which belongs partly to us, but chiefly to those who come after us. Can they be aroused before it is too late? The time to discuss tiresome academic theories regarding bag limits and different open seasons as being sufficient to preserve the game has gone by. We have reached the point where the alternatives are long closed seasons or a gameless continent, and we must choose one or the other speedily. A continent without wildlife is like a forest with no leaves on the trees. The great increase in the slaughter of songbirds for food by the Negroes and poor whites of the South has become an unbearable scourge to our migratory birds. The very birds on which farmers north and south depend for protection from the insect hordes, the very birds that are most near and dear to the people of the North. Songbird slaughter is growing and spreading with the decrease of the game birds. It is a matter that requires instant attention and stern repression. At the present moment it seems that the only remedy lies in federal protection for all migratory birds because so many states will not do their duty. We are weary of witnessing the greed, selfishness, and cruelty of civilized man toward the wild creatures of the earth. We are sick of tales of slaughter and pictures of carnage. It is time for a sweeping reformation, and that is precisely what we now demand. I have been a sportsman myself, but times have changed and we must change also. When game is plentiful, I believe that it is right for men and boys to kill a limited amount of it for sport and for the table. But the old basis has been swept away by an army of destruction that now is almost beyond all control. We must awake and arouse to the new situation, face it like men and adjust our minds to the new conditions. The three million gunners of today must no longer expect or demand the same generous hunting privileges that were right for hunters fifty years ago. When game was fifty times as plentiful as it is now, and there was only one killer for every fifty now in the field. The fatalistic idea that bag limit laws can save the game is today the curse of all our game birds, mammals, and fishes. It is a fraud, a delusion, and a snare. The miserable fetish has been worshipped much too long. Our game is being exterminated everywhere by blind insistence upon open seasons and solemn reliance upon legal bag limits. If a majority of the people of America feel that so long as there is any game alive, there must be an annual two months or four months open season for its slaughter. Then assuredly we soon will have a gameless continent. The only thing that will save the game is by stopping the killing of it. In establishing and promulgating this principle, the cause of wildlife protection greatly needs three things. Money, labor, and publicity. With the first, we can secure the second and third. But can we get it? And can we get it in time to save? This volume is in every sense a contribution to a cause. And as such it ever will remain. I wish the public to receive it on that basis. So much important material has drifted straight to it from other hands that this unexpected aid seems to the author like a good omen. The manuscript has received the benefit of a close and critical reading and correcting by my comrade on the firing line and esteemed friend, Mr. Madison Grant, through which the text was greatly improved. But for this splendid encouragement and assistance that I have received from him and from Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, the work involved would have borne down rather heavily. The four chapters embracing the new laws needed, a roll call of the states were critically inspected, corrected, and brought down to date by Dr. T. S. Palmer, our highest authority on the game laws of the nation and the states. For this valuable service the author is deeply grateful. Of course, the author is alone responsible for all the opinions and conclusions herein recorded, and for all errors that appear outside of quotations. I trust that the reader will kindly excuse and forget all the typographic and clerical errors that may have escaped me in the rush that had to be made against time. WTH University Heights, New York, December 1, 1912 End of Forward and Preface. Part 1, Chapter 1 of Our Vanishing Wildlife. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, ought to volunteer visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Karl Manchester, 2007. Our Vanishing Wildlife, by William T. Horner Day. Part 1, Extermination. Chapter 1, The Former Abundance of Wildlife. By my labours my vineyard flourished, but Ahab came, alas, for Naboth. In order that the American people may correctly understand and judge the question of the extinction or preservation of our wildlife, it is necessary to recall the near past. It is not necessary, however, to go far into the details of history, for a few quick glances at a few high points will be quite sufficient for the purpose in view. Any man who reads the books, which best tell the story of the development of the American colonies of 1712 into the American nation of 1912, and takes note of the wildlife features of the tale, will say without hesitation that when the American people received this land from the bountiful hand of nature, it was endowed with a magnificent and all-pervading supply of valuable wild creatures. The pioneers and the early settlers were too busy even to take due note of that fact, or to comment upon it, save in very fragmentary ways. Nevertheless, the wildlife abundance of early American days survived down to so later period that it touched the lives of millions of people now living. Any man 55 years of age who, when a boy had a taste for hunting, for at that time there were no sportsmen in America, will remember the flocks and herds of wild creatures that he saw and which made upon his mind many indelible impressions. Abundance is the word with which to describe the original animal life that stocked our country and all North America only a short half-century ago. Throughout every state, on every shoreline, in all the millions of freshwater lakes, ponds and rivers, on every mountain range in every forest, and even on every desert, the wild flocks and herds held sway. It was impossible to go beyond the settled haunts of civilized man and escape them. It was a full century after the complete settlement of New England and the Virginia colonies that the wonderful big game fauna of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains was really discovered. But the bison millions, the antelope millions, the mule deer, the mountain sheep and mountain goat were there all the time. In the early days, the millions of pinnated grouse and quail of the central states attracted no serious attention from the American people at large. But they lived and flourished just the same far down in the 70s. When the greedy market gunners systematically slaughtered them and barreled them up for the market, while the foolish farmers calmly permitted them to do it. We obtained the best of our history of the former abundance of North American wildlife, first from the pages of Audubon and Wilson, next from the records left by such pioneers as Lewis and Clark, and last from the testimony of living men. To all this we can, many of us, add observations of our own. To me, the most striking fact that stands forth in the story of American wildlife 100 years ago is the wide extent and thoroughness of its distribution. Wide as our country is and marvellous as it is in the diversity of its climates, its soils, its topography, its flora, its riches and its poverty, nature gave to each square mile and to each acre a generous quota of wild creatures according to its ability to maintain living things. No pioneer ever pushed so far or into regions so difficult or so remote that he did not find awaiting him a host of birds and beasts. Sometimes the pioneer was not a good hunter, usually he was a stupid fisherman, but the game was there nevertheless. The time was when every farm had its quota. The part that the wildlife of America played in the settlement and development of this continent was so far reaching in extent and so enormous in potential value that it fairly staggers the imagination. From the landing of the pilgrims down to the present hour, the wild game has been the mainstay and the resource against starvation of the pathfinder, the settler, the prospector, and at times even the railroad builder. In view of what the Bison Millions did for the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas and Texas, it is only right and square that those states should now do something for the perpetual preservation of the Bison species and all other big game that needs help. For years and years, the Antelope Millions of the Montana and Wyoming grasslands fed the scout and Indian fighter, freighter, cowboy and surveyor, ranchman and sheep herder. But thus far I have yet to hear of one Western state that has ever spent one penny directly for the preservation of the Antelope. And today we're in a hand to hand fight in Congress and in Montana with the Wool Growers Association, which maintains in Washington a keen lobbyist to keep a loft of the tariff on wool and prevent Congress from taking 15 square miles of grasslands on Snow Creek Montana for a national Antelope preserve. All that the Wool Growers want is the entire earth all to themselves. Mr. McClure, the secretary of the Association says, the proper place in which to preserve the big game of the West is in city parks where it can be protected. To the colonist of the East and pioneer of the West, the whitetail deer was an ever present help in time of trouble. Without this omnipresent animal and the supply of good meat, the teach white flag represented the commissariat difficulties of the settlers who won the country as far westward as Indiana would have been many times greater than they were. The backwards pilgrims progress was like this. Trail, deer, cabin, deer, clearing, bear, corn, deer, hogs, deer, cattle, wheat, independence. And yet how many men are there today out of our 90 millions of Americans and pseudo Americans who remember with any feeling or gratitude the part played in American history by the whitetail deer? Very few. How many Americans are there in our land who now preserve that deer for sentimental reasons and because his forebears were nation builders? As a matter of fact, are there any? On every Eastern pioneers monument, the whitetail deer should figure and on those of the Great West, the bison and the antelope should be cast in enduring bronze, lest we forget. The game birds of America played a different part from that of the deer, antelope and bison. In the early days, shotguns were few and shot was scarce and deer. The wild turkey and goose were the smallest birds on which a rifleman could afford to expend a bullet and a whole charge of powder. It was for this reason that the deer, bear, bison and elk disappeared from the Eastern United States while the game birds yet remained abundant. With the disappearance of the big game came the fat steer, hog and hominy, the wheat field, fruit orchard and poultry galore. The game birds of America, as a class and a mass, have not been swept away to ward off starvation or to rescue the perishing. Even back in the 60s and 70s, very, very few men of the North thought of killing prairie chickens, ducks and quail, snipe and woodcock in order to keep the hunger wolf from the door. The process was too slow and uncertain and besides, the really poor man rarely had the gun and ammunition. Instead of attempting to live on birds, he hustled for the staple food products that the soil of his own farm could produce. First, last and nearly all the time, the game birds of the United States as a whole have been sacrificed on the altar of rank luxury to tempt appetites that were tired of fried chicken and other farm delicacies. Today, even the average poor man hunts birds for the joy of the outing and the pampered epicures of the hotels and restaurants, buy game birds and eat small portions of them solely to tempt jaded appetites. If there is such a thing as class legislation, it is that which permits a few sordid market shooters to slaughter the birds of the whole people in order to sell them to a few epicures. The game of a state belongs to the whole people of the state. The Supreme Court of the United States has so decided, Gia vs Connecticut, if it is abundant, it is a valuable asset. The great value of the game birds of America lies not in their meat pounds as they lie upon the table, but in the temptation they annually put before millions of field wary farmers and desk weary clerks and merchants to get into their beloved hunting dogs, stalk out into the lap of nature and say, big on dull care. And the man who has had a fine day in his painted woods on the bright waters of a duck haunted bay or in the golden stubble of September can fill his day and his soul with six good birds just as well as with sixty. The idea that in order to enjoy a fine day in the open, a man must kill a wheelbarrow load of birds is a mistaken idea and if obstinately adhered to it becomes vicious. The outing in the open is the thing, not the bloodstained feathers, nasty viscera and death in the game bag. One quail on a fence is worth more to the world than ten in a bag. The farmers of America have by their own supineness and lack of foresight permitted the slaughter of a stock of game birds which had it been properly and wisely conserved would have furnished a good annual shoot to every man and boy of sporting instincts through the past, right down to the present and far beyond. They have allowed millions of dollars worth of their birds to be coolly snatched away from them by the greedy market shooters. There is one state in America and so far as I know only one in which there is at this moment an old time abundance of game bird life. That is the state of Louisiana. The reason is not so very far to seek. For the birds that do not migrate, quail, wild turkeys and doves, the cover is yet abundant. For the migratory game birds of the Mississippi Valley, Louisiana is a grand central depot with terminal facilities that are unsurpassed. Her reedy shores, her vast marshes, her long coastline and abundance of food furnish what should be not only a haven but a heaven for ducks and geese. After running the gauntlet of guns all the way from Manitoba and Ontario to the sunk lands of Arkansas, the shores of the Gulf must seem like heaven itself. The great forests of Louisiana sheltered deer, turkeys and fur-bearing animals galore and rabbits and squirrels abound. Naturally, this abundance of game has given rise to an extensive industry in shooting for the market. The big interests outside the state send their agents into the best game districts, often bringing in their own force of shooters. They comb out the game in enormous quantities without leaving the people of Louisiana any decent and fair quid pro quo for having despoiled them of their game and shipped a vast annual product outside to create wealth elsewhere. At present, however, we are but incidentally interested in the shortsightedness of the people of the Pelican state. As a state of old-time abundance in killable game, the killing records that were kept in the year 1909 to 10 possess for us very great interest. They throw a startling search light on the subject of this chapter, the former abundance of wildlife. From the records that with great pains and labour were gathered by the State Game Commission, and which were furnished me for use here by President Frank M. Miller, we set forth this remarkable exhibit of old-fashioned abundance in game, A.D. 1909. Official record of game killed in Louisiana during the season 12 months of 1909 to 10. Birds, wild ducks, sea and river, 3,176,000. Coots, 280,740. Geese and Brant, 202,210. Snipe, sandpiper and plover, 606,635. Quail, Bob White, 1,140,750. Doves, 310,660. Wild turkeys, 2,219. Total number of game birds killed, 5,719,214. Mammals, deer, 5,470. Squirrels and rabbits, 690,270. Total of game mammals, 695,740. Fur-bearing mammals, 1,971,922. Total of mammals, 2,667,662. Grand total of birds and mammals, 8,386,876. Of the thousands of slaughtered robins, it would seem that no records exist. It is to be understood that the annual slaughter of wildlife in Louisiana never before reached such a pitch as now. Without drastic measures, what will be the inevitable result? Does any man suppose that even the wild millions of Louisiana can long withstand such a slaughter as that shown by the official figures given above? It is wildly impossible. But the darkest hour is just before the dawn. At the session of the Louisiana legislature that was held in the spring of 1912, great improvements were made in the game laws of that state. The most important feature was the suppression of wholesale market hunting by persons who are not resident of the state. A very limited amount of game may be sold and served as food in public places, but the restrictions placed upon this traffic are so effective that they will vastly reduce the annual slaughter. In other respects also the cause of wildlife protection gained much, for which great credit is due to Mr. Edward A. McKillenny. It is the way of Americans to feel that because game is abundant in a given place at a given time it always will be abundant and may therefore be slaughtered without limit. That was the case last winter in California during the awful slaughter of band-tailed pigeons as will be noted elsewhere. It is time for all men to be told in the plainest terms that there has never existed anywhere in historic times a volume of wildlife so great that civilized man could not quickly exterminate it by methods of destruction. Lift the veil and look at the stories of the bison, the passenger pigeon, the wild ducks and shorebirds of the Atlantic coast and the fur seal. As reasoning beings it is our duty to heed the lessons of history and not rush blindly on until we perpetuate a continent destitute of wildlife. End of chapter one of section one. Chapter two of Our Vanishing Wildlife. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Our Vanishing Wildlife by William T. Hornaday. Chapter two. Extinct Species of North American Birds. For educated civilized man to exterminate a valuable wild species of living things is a crime. It is a crime against his own children and posterity. No man has a right, either moral or legal, to destroy or squander an inheritance of his children that he holds for them in trust. And man, the wasteful and greedy spentthrift that he is, has not created even the humblest of the species of birds, mammals and fishes that adorn and enrich this earth. The earth is the lords and the fullness thereof. With all his wisdom man has not evolved in place here so much as a ground squirrel, a sparrow or a clam. It is true that he has juggled with the wild horse and sheep, the goats and the swine, and produced some hardy breeds that can withstand his abuse without going down before it. But as for species, he has not yet created and placed here even so much as a protozoan. The wild things of this earth are not ours to do with as we please. They have been given to us in trust, and we must account for them to the generations which will come after us and audit our accounts. But man, the shameless destroyer of nature's gifts, blithely and persistently exterminates one species after another. Fully ten percent of the human race consists of people who will lie, steal, throw rubbish in parks, and destroy forests and wildlife whenever and wherever they can do so without being stopped by a policeman and a club. These are hard words, but they are absolutely true. From ten percent or more of the human race, the high moral instinct which is honest without compulsion is absent. The things that seemingly decent citizens, men posing as gentlemen, will do to wild game when they secure great chances to slaughter are appalling. I could fill a book of this size with cases in point. Today the women of England, Europe, and elsewhere are directly promoting the extermination of scores of beautiful species of wild birds by the devilish persistence with which they buy and wear feather ornaments made of their plumage. They are just as mean and cruel as the truck driver who drives a horse with a sore shoulder and beats him on the street. But they do it, and appeals to them to do otherwise they laugh to scorn, saying, I will wear what is fashionable when I please and where I please. As a famous bird protector of England has just written me, the women of the smart set are beyond the reach of appeal or protest. Today the thing that stares me in the face every waking hour, like a grisly specter with bloody fang and claw, is the extermination of species. To me that is a horrible thing. It is wholesale murder, no less. It is capital crime and a black disgrace to the races of civilized mankind. I say civilized mankind because savages don't do it. There are three kinds of extermination. The practical extermination of a species means the destruction of its members to an extent so thorough and widespread that the species disappears from view and living specimens of it cannot be found by seeking for them. In North America this is today the status of the whooping crane, upland plover, and several other species. If any individuals are living they will be met with only by accident. The absolute extermination of a species means that not one individual of it remains alive. Judgment to this effect is based upon the lapse of time since the last living specimen was observed or killed. When five years have passed without a living record of a wild specimen it is time to place a species in the class of the totally extinct. Extermination in a wild state means that the only living representatives are in captivity or otherwise under protection. This is the case of the Heathen and David's Deer of China. The American bison is saved from being wholly extinct as a wild animal by the remnant of about three hundred head in Northern Athabasca and forty nine head in the Yellowstone Park. It is a serious thing to exterminate a species of any of the vertebrate animals. There are probably millions of people who do not realize that civilized man is the most persistently and wickedly wasteful of all the predatory animals. The lions, the tigers, the bears, the eagles and hawks, serpents and the fish eating fishes all live by destroying life, but they kill only what they think they can consume. If something is by chance left over, it goes to satisfy the hunger of the humbler creatures of prey. In a state of nature where wild creatures prey upon wild creatures, such a thing as wanton, wholesale and utterly wasteful slaughter is almost unknown. When the wild mink, weasel and skunk suddenly finds himself in the midst of scores of man's confined and helpless domestic fowls, or his cage gulls in a zoological park, an unusual criminal passion to murder for the joy of killing sometimes seizes the wild animal and great slaughter is the result. From the earliest historic times it has been the way of savage man, red, black, brown and yellow to kill as the wild animals do, only what he can use or thinks he can use. The Cree Indian impounded small herds of bison and sometimes killed from one hundred to two hundred at one time, but it was to make sure of having enough meat and hides and because he expected to use the product. I think that even the worst enemies of the plains Indians hardly will accuse them of killing large numbers of bison, elk or deer merely for the pleasure of seeing them fall or taking only their teeth. It has remained for the wolf, the sheep-killing dog and civilized man to make records of wanton slaughter which puts them in a class together and quite apart from other predatory animals. When a man can kill bison for their tongues alone, bull elk for their tusks alone and shoot a whole colony of hippopotamia actually damning a river with their bloated and putrid carcasses all untouched by the knife, the men who do such things must be classed with the cruel wolf and the criminal dog. It is now desirable that we should pause in our career of destruction long enough to look back upon what we have recently accomplished in the total extinction of species and also note what we have blocked out for the immediate future. Here let us erect a monument to the dead species of our own times. It is to be doubted whether, up to this hour, any man has made a list of the species of North American birds that have become extinct during the past 60 years. The specialists have no time to spare from their compound differential microscopes and the bird killers are too busy with shooting, netting and clubbing to waste any time on such trifles as exterminated species. What does a market shooter care about birds that cannot be killed a second time? As for the farmers, they are so busy raising hogs and prices that their best friends, the birds, get scant attention from them until a hand-hawk takes a chicken. Down south, the negroes and poor whites may slaughter robins for food by the 10,000, but does the northern farmer bother his head about a trifle of that kind? No, indeed. Will he contribute any real money to help put a stop to it? Ask him yourself. Let us pause long enough to reckon up some of our expenditures in species and in millions of individuals. Let us set down here in cold blood a list of the species of our own North American birds that have been totally exterminated in our own times. After that, we will have something to say about other species that soon will be exterminated and the second task is much greater than the first. Role call of the dead species of American birds. The great awk, Plautus and Penis, Lyn, was a seagoing diving bird about the size of a domestic goose related to the Gila Mose, Murs and Puffins. For a bird endowed with only flipper-like wings and therefore absolutely unable to fly, this species had an astonishing geographic range. It embraced the shores of northern Europe to North Cape, southern Greenland, southern Labrador and the Atlantic coast of North America as far south as Massachusetts. Some say as far south as Massachusetts, the Carolinas and Florida, but that is a large order and I leave the AOU to prove that if it can. In the life history of this bird, a great tragedy was enacted in 1800 by sailors on Funk Island, north of Newfoundland, where men were landed by a ship and spent several months slaughtering great awks and trying out their fat for oil. In this process the bodies of thousands of awks were burned as fuel and working up the remains of tens of thousands of others. On Funk Island, a favorite breeding place, the great awk was exterminated in 1840 and in Iceland in 1844. Many natives ate this bird with relish and being easily captured either on land or sea. The commercialism of its day soon obliterated the species. The last living specimen was seen in 1852 and the last dead one was picked up in Trinity Bay, Ireland in 1853. There are about 80 mounted and unmounted skins in existence, four skeletons and quite a number of eggs. An egg is worth about $1,200 and a good mounted skin at least double that sum. The Labrador Duck Camptorinctis labradoricus G-Mell This handsome sea duck of a species related to the Eider ducks of Arctic waters became totally extinct about 1875 before the scientific world even knew that its existence was threatened. With this species, the exact and final cause of its extinction is to this day unknown. It is not at all probable, however, that its unfortunate blotting out from our bird fauna was due to natural causes. And when the truth becomes known, it is very probable that the hand of man will be revealed. The Labrador Duck bread in Labrador and once frequented our Atlantic coast as far south as Chesapeake Bay, but it is said that it never was very numerous, at least during the 25 years preceding its disappearance. About 35 skins and mounted museum specimens are all that remain to prove its former existence and I think there is not even one skeleton. The Palace Cormorant Carbo-Perspiscolatus Palace In 1741, when the Russian explorer Commodore Bering discovered the Bering or Commander Islands in the far north Pacific and landed upon them, he also discovered the striking bird species. Its plumage, both above and below, was a dark metallic green with blue iridescence on the neck and purple on the shoulders. A pale ring of naked skin around each eye suggested the Latin specific name of this bird. The Palace Cormorant became totally extinct through causes not positively known about 1852. The passenger pigeon Ectopistus migratoria Lynne We placed this bird in the totally extinct class, not only because it is extinct in a wild state, but only one solitary individual, a 20 year old female in the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens now remains alive. One living specimen and a few skins, skeletons and stuffed specimens are all that remain to show for the uncountable millions of pigeons that swarmed of the United States only yesterday as it were. There is no doubt about where those millions have gone. They went down and out by systematic wholesale slaughter for the market and the pot before the shotguns, clubs and nets of the earliest American pot hunters. Wherever they nested, they were slaughtered. It is a long and shameful story, but the grisly skeleton of this Michigan chapter can be set forth in a few words. In 1869, from the town of Hartford, Michigan, three carloads of dead pigeons were shipped to market each day for 40 days, making a total of 11,880,000 birds. It is recorded that another Michigan town marketed 15,840,000 in two years. See Mr. W. B. Mershan's book, The Passenger Pigeon. Alexander Wilson, the pioneer American ornithologist, was the man who seriously endeavored to estimate by computations the total number of passenger pigeons in one flock that was seen by him. Here is what he has said in his American ornithology. To form a rough estimate of the daily consumption of one of these immense flocks, let us first attempt to calculate the numbers of that above mentioned as seen in passing between Frankfurt and the Indiana territory. If we suppose this column to have been one mile in breath, and I believe it to have been much more, and that it moved at the rate of one mile in a minute, four hours the time it continued passing, would make its whole length 240 miles. Again, supposing that each square yard of this moving body comprehended three pigeons, the square yards in the whole space multiplied by three would give two billion, two hundred and thirty million, two hundred and seventy two thousand pigeons, an almost inconceivable multitude, and yet probably far below the actual amount. Happening to go ashore one charming afternoon to purchase some milk at a house that stood near the river. And while talking with the people within doors, I was suddenly struck with astonishment at a loud rushing roar succeeded by instant darkness, which on the first moment I took for a tornado about to overwhelm the house and everything around in destruction. The people observing my surprise coolly said, it is only the pigeons. On running out, I beheld a flock thirty or forty yards in width, sweeping along very low between the house and the mountain or height that formed the second bank of the river. These continued passing for more than a quarter of an hour and at length vary their bearing so as to pass over the mountains behind which they disappeared before the rear came up. In the Atlantic States, though they never appear in such unparalleled multitudes, they are sometimes very numerous and great havoc is then made amongst them with the gun, the clap net and various other implements of destruction. As soon as it is ascertained in a town that the pigeons are flying numerously in the neighborhood, the gunners rise and mass. The clap nets are spread out on suitable situations, commonly on an open height in an old buckwheat field. Four or five live pigeons with their eyelids sewed up are fastened on a movable stick. A small head of branches is fitted up for the fowler at a distance of forty or fifty yards. By the pulling of a string, the stick on which the pigeons rest is alternately elevated and depressed, which produces a fluttering of their wings, similar to that of birds alighting. This being perceived by the passing flocks, they descend with great rapidity and finding corn, buckwheat, etc., strewed about, begin to feed and are instantly by the pulling of a cord covered by the net. In this manner, ten, twenty and even thirty dozen have been caught at one sweep. Meantime, the air is darkened with large bodies of them moving in various directions. The woods also swarm with them in search of acorns, and the thundering of musketry is perpetual on all sides from morning to night. Wagon loads of them are poured into market, where they sell from fifty to twenty-five or even twelve cents per dozen, and pigeons become the order of the day at dinner, breakfast, and supper, until the very name becomes sickening. The range of the passenger pigeon covered nearly the whole United States from the Atlantic coast westward to the Rocky Mountains. A few bold pigeons cross the Rocky Mountains into Oregon, Northern California, and Washington, but only as stragglers, few and far between. The wide range of this bird was worthy of a species that existed in millions, and it was persecuted literally all along the line. The greatest slaughter was in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In 1848, Massachusetts gravely passed a law protecting the netters of wild pigeons from foreign interference. There was a fine of ten dollars for damaging nets or frightening pigeons away from them. This was on the theory that the pigeons were so abundant they could not by any possibility ever become scarce and that pigeon slaughter was a legitimate industry. In 1867 the state of New York found that the wild pigeon needed protection and enacted a law to that effect. The year 1868 was the last year in which great numbers of passenger pigeons nested in that state. Eaton, in the Birds of New York, said that millions of birds occupied the timber along Bell's Run near Ceres, Allegheny County, on the Pennsylvania line. In 1870 Massachusetts gave pigeons protection except during an open season, and in 1878 Pennsylvania elected to protect pigeons on their nesting grounds. The passenger pigeon millions were destroyed so quickly and so thoroughly unmasked that the American people utterly failed to comprehend it, and for thirty years obstinately refused to believe that the species had been suddenly wiped off the map of North America. There was years of talk about the great flocks having taken refuge in South America or in Mexico and being still in existence. There were surmises about their having all gone out to sea and perished on the briny deep. A thousand times at least wild pigeons have been reported as having been seen. These rumors have covered nearly every northern state, the whole of the Southwest and California. For years and years we have been patiently writing letters to explain over and over that the band-tailed pigeon of the Pacific Coast and the red-billed pigeon of Arizona and the Southwest are neither of them the passenger pigeon and never can be. There was a long period wherein we believed many of the pigeon reports that came from the states where the birds once were most numerous, but that period has absolutely passed. During the past five years large-caste rewards aggregating about five thousand dollars have been offered for the discovery of one nesting pair of genuine passenger pigeons. Many persons have claimed this reward, a professor C. F. Hodge of Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, and many claims have been investigated. The results have disclosed many morning doves, but not one pigeon. Now we understand that the quest is closed and hope has been abandoned. The passenger pigeon is a dead species, the last wild specimen so we believe that ever will reach the hands of man was taken near Detroit, Michigan on September 14th, 1908 and mounted by C. Campion. That is the one definite positive record of the past ten years. The fate of this species should be a lasting lesson to the world at large. Any wild bird or mammal species can be exterminated by commercial interests in twenty years' time or less. The Eskimo Curleau, Numenius Borealis, forced. This valuable game bird once ranged all along the Atlantic coast of North America and wherever found it was prized for the table. It preferred the fields and meadows to the shorelines and was the companion of the plovers of the uplands, especially the golden plover. About 1872, says Mr. Forbush, there was a great flight of these birds on Cape Cod and Nantucket. They were everywhere and enormous numbers were killed. They could be bought of boys at six cents apiece. Two men killed three hundred dollars worth of these birds at that time. Apparently this was the beginning of the end of the doe bird, which was another name for this curleau. In 1908 Mr. G. H. Mackey stated that this bird and the golden plover had decreased 90 percent in fifty years and in the last ten years of that period 90 percent of the remainder had gone. Now, 1908, says Mr. Forbush, ornithologists believe that the Eskimo curleau is practically extinct as only a few specimens have been recorded since the beginning of the twentieth century. The very last record is of two specimens collected at Waco, York County, Nebraska, in March 1911 and recorded by Mr. August Eich. Of course it is possible that other individuals may still survive, but so far as our knowledge extends the species is absolutely dead. In the West Indies and the Guadalupe Islands five species of macaws and parakeets have passed out without any serious note of their disappearance on the part of the people of the United States. It is at least time to write brief obituary notices of them. We are indebted to the Honorable Walter Rothschild of Tring, England for essential facts regarding these species as set forth in his sumptuous work extinct birds. The Cuban tricolored macaw, Ara tricolor GM. In 1875 when the author visited Cuba and the Isle of Pines he was informed by Professor Poe that he was about ten years too late to find this fine species alive. It was exterminated for food purposes about 1864 and only four specimens are known to be in existence. Gosses macaw, Ara Gossii Roth. This species once inhabited the island of Jamaica. It was exterminated about 1800 and so far as known not one specimen of it is in existence. Guadalupe macaw, Ara Guadalupe and sis, Clark. All it is known of the life history of this large bird is that it once inhabited the Guadalupe islands. The day in history of its disappearance are both unknown and there is not one specimen of it in existence. Yellow winged green parrot, Arizona alavesia, G.M. Of the history of this Guadalupe species also nothing is known and there appear to be no specimens of it in existence. Purple Guadalupe parakeet, Anoda rinkus perpurescens, Rothschild. This is another dead species that once lived in the Guadalupe islands and passed away silently and unnoticed at the time leaving no records of its existence and no specimens. The Carolina parakeet conoropsis, Carolinensis, Lynn brings us down to the present moment. To this charming little green and yellow bird we are in the very act of bidding everlasting farewell. Ten specimens remain alive in captivity six of which are in the Cincinnati Zoological Garden three are in the Washington Zoological Park and one is in the New York Zoological Park. Regarding wild specimens it is possible that some obscure and neglected corner of Florida but it is extremely doubtful whether the world will ever find any of them alive. Mrs. Minnie Moore Wilson of Kissimmee, Florida reports the species as totally extinct in Florida. Unless we would strain at a nat we may as well enter this species in the dead class for there is no reason to hope that any more wild specimens ever will be found. The former range of this species embrace the whole United States. From the Gulf it extended to Albany, New York Northern Ohio and Indiana Northern Iowa Nebraska Central Colorado and Eastern Texas from which it will be seen that once it was widely distributed. It was shot because it was destructive to fruit and for its plumage and many were trapped alive to be kept in captivity. I know that one colony near the mouth of the Sebastian River by a local hunter and I regret to say that it was done in the hope of selling the living birds to a New York bird dealer by holding bags over the holes in which the birds were nesting the entire colony of about 16 birds was caught. Everywhere else then in Florida the Carolina parakeet has long been extinct. In 1904 a flock of 13 birds was seen near Lake Okeechobee but in Florida many calamities disappeared of their ancestors. The birds in captivity are not breeding and so far as perpetuation by them is concerned they are only one remove from mounted museum specimens. This parakeet is the only member of its order that ranged into the United States during our times and with its disappearance the order Pissatassa forms totally disappears from our country. In the world of human beings, murder is the most serious of all crimes. To take from a man that which no one can ever restore to him, his life, is murder, and its penalty is the most severe of all penalties. There are circumstances under which the killing of a wild animal may be so wanton, so revolting, and so utterly reprehensible that the act may justly be classed as murder. The man who kills a walrus from the deck of a steamer that he knows will not stop. The man who wantonly killed the whole colony of hippopotamia that Mr. Dougmore photographed in life. The man who last winter shot bull elk in Wyoming for their two ugly and shapeless teeth. And the man who wantonly shot down a half-team deer for fun near Carmel, Putnam County, New York, in the summer of 1912. All were guilty of murdering wild animals. The murder of a wild animal species consists in taking from it that which man with all his cunning and all his preserves and breeding cannot give back to it. It's God-given place in the ranks of living things. Or as man's boasted intelligence, or his sense of proportion, that every man does not see the monstrous moral obliquity involved in the destruction of a species. If the beautiful Taj Mahal at Agra should be destroyed by vandals, the intelligent portion of humanity would be profoundly shocked, even though the hand of man could at will restore the shrine of sorrowing love. Today, the great Indian rhinoceros, certainly one of the most wonderful four-footed animals still surviving, is actually being exterminated. And even the people of India and England are viewing it with an indifference that is appalling. Of course there are among Englishmen, a great many sportsmen, and several zoologists who really care, but they do not constitute one-tenth of one percent of the men who ought to care. In the museums we stand in awe and wonder before the fossil skeleton of the megatherium, and the savants struggle to unveil its past. While the equally great and marvellous rhinoceros Indicus is being rushed into oblivion, we marvel at the fossil shell of the gigantic turtle called Colus Cisilis Atlas. While the last living representatives of the gigantic land tortoises are being exterminated in the Galapagos Islands and the Seychelles, for their paltry oil and meat, and only one man, Honourable Walter Rothschild, is doing ought to save any of them in their haunts where they can breed. The Dodo of Moritius was exterminated by Swine, whose bipedal descendants have exterminated many other species since that time. A failure to appreciate either the beauty or the value of our living birds, quadrupeds, and fishes is the hallmark of arrested mental development and ignorance. The victim is not always to blame, but in this practical world the cornerstone of legal jurisprudence is the inexorable principle that ignorance of the law excuses no man. These pages are addressed to my countrymen and the world at large, not as a reproach upon the dead past which is gone beyond recall, but in the faint hope of somewhere and somehow arousing forces that will reform the present and save the future. The extermination of wild species that now is proceeding throughout the world is a dreadful thing. It is not only injurious to the economy of the world, but it is a shame and a disgrace to the civilized portion of the human race. It is of little avail that I should here enter into a detailed description of each species that is now being railroaded into oblivion. The bookshelves of intelligent men and women are filled with beautiful and adequate books on birds and quadrupeds wherein the status of each species may be determined almost without effort. There is time and space only in which to notice the most prominent of the doomed species and perhaps discuss a few examples by way of illustration. Here is a partial list of North American birds threatened with early extermination. Whooping crane, pectoral sandpiper, trumpeter swan, black capped pretrel, American flamingo, American egret, rosate spoonbill, snowy egret, scarlet ibis, wood duck, long-billed curlew, band-tailed pigeon, Hadsonian godwit, heath hen, upland plover, sage grouse, red-breasted sandpiper, prairie sharp tail, golden plover, pinnaded grouse, dowager, white-tailed kite, willet. The whooping crane. This blended bird will almost certainly be the next North American species to be totally exterminated. It is the only new world rival of the numerous large and showy cranes of the old world, for the sandhill crane is not in the same class as the white, black, and blue giants of Asia. We will part from our stately, grouse Americanus with profound sorrow, for on this continent we never shall see his like again. The well-nigh total disappearance of this species has been brought close to home to us by the fact that there are less than half a dozen individuals alive in captivity, while in a wild state the bird is so rare as to be quite unobtainable. For example, for nearly five years an English gentleman has been offering one thousand dollars for a pair, and the most enterprising bird collector in America has been quite unable to fill the order. So far as our information extends, the last living specimen captured was taken six or seven years ago. The last wild birds seen and reported were observed by Ernest Thompson Seton, who saw five below Fort McMurray, Saskatchewan, October 16, 1907, and by John F. Ferry, who saw one at Big Quill Lakes, Saskatchewan, in June 1909. The range of this species once covered the eastern two-thirds of the continent of North America. It extended from the Atlantic coast to the Rocky Mountains, and from Great Bear Lake to Florida and Texas. Eastward of the Mississippi it has for twenty years been totally extinct, and the last specimens taken alive were found in Kansas and Nebraska. Image, whooping cranes in the zoological park. Very soon this species will become totally extinct. The Trumpeter Swan Six years ago this species was regarded as so nearly extinct that a doubting ornithological club of Boston refused to believe on hearsay evidence that the New York Zoological Park contained a pair of living birds, and a committee was appointed to investigate in person and report. Even at that time, skins were worth all the way from one hundred dollars to one hundred and fifty dollars each. And when swan skins sell at either of those figures, it is because there are people who believe that the species either is on the verge of extinction or has passed it. The pair referred to above was acquired in 1900. Since that time Dr. Leonard C. Sanford procured in 1910 two living birds from a bird dealer who obtained them on the coast of Virginia. We have done our utmost to induce our pair to breed, but without any further results than nest-building. The loss of the Trumpeter Swan, Olor Americanus, will not be so great nor felt so keenly as the blotting out of the whooping crane. It so closely resembles the whistling swan that only an ornithologist can recognize the difference, a yellow spot on the side of the upper mandible near its base. The whistling swan yet remains in fair numbers, but it is to be feared that soon it will go as the Trumpeter has gone. The American Flamingo, Scarlet Ibis, and Rosate Spoonbill are three of the most beautiful and curious water-hunting birds of the tropics, once all three species inhabited portions of the southern United States, but now all three are gone from our star-spangled bird fauna. The brilliant scarlet plumage of the Flamingo and Ibis, and the exquisite pink-rose color and white of the Spoonbill naturally attracted the evil eyes of the milliner's taxidermists and other bird butchers. In Florida these birds quickly vanished. The six great breeding colonies of Flamingos on Andros Island, Bahamas, have been reduced to two, and from Professor E. A. Goldi of the State Museum Goldi, Para, Brazil, have come bitter complaints of the slaughter of scarlet ibises in South America by plume hunters in European pay. I know not how other naturalists regard the future of the three species named above, but my opinion is that unless the European feather trade is quickly stopped as to wild plumage, they are absolutely certain to be shot into total oblivion within a very few years. The plumage of these birds has so much commercial value for fisherman's flies as well as for women's hats that the birds will be killed as long as their feathers can be sold and any birds remain alive. Zoologically, the Flamingo is the most odd and interesting bird on the American continent except the emperor penguin. Its beak baffles description. Its long legs and webbed feet are a joke. Its nesting habits are amazing, and its food habits the despair of most zoological garden keepers. Millions of Flamingos inhabit the shores of a number of small lakes in the interior of Equatorial East Africa, but that species is not brilliant scarlet all over the head and neck, as is the case with our species. If the American Flamingo, scarlet ibis, and rosate spoonbill, one or all of them, are to be saved from total extinction. Efforts must be made in each of the countries in which they breed and live. Their preservation is distinctly a burden upon the countries of South America that lie eastward of the Andes, and on Yucatan, Cuba, and the Bahamas. The time has come when the government of the Bahama Islands should sternly forbid the killing of any more Flamingos on any pretext whatever, and if the capture of living specimens for exhibition purposes militates against the welfare of the colonies, they should forbid that also, the upland plover, or Bartramanian sandpiper. Apparently this is the next shorebird species that will follow the Eskimo curlew into oblivion. Four years ago, a long period for a species that is on the edge of extermination, Mr. EH Forbush wrote of it as follows. The Bartramanian sandpiper, commonly known as the upland plover, a bird which formerly bred on grassy hills all over the state, and migrated southward along our coasts in great flocks, is in imminent danger of extirpation. A few still breed in Worcester and Berkshire Counties, or Nantucket, so there is still a nucleus which, if protected, may save the species. Five reports from localities where this bird formerly bred give it as nearing extinction, and four as extinct. This is one of the most useful of all birds in grassland feeding largely on grasshoppers and cutworms. It is one of the finest of all birds for the table, and effort should be made at once to save this useful species. The black capped pretrell. Asterlada has a tita. This species is already recorded in the AOU checklist as extinct, but it appears that this may not as yet be absolutely true. On January 1, 1912, a strange thing happened. A much battered and exhausted black capped pretrell was picked up alive in Central Park, New York, taken to the Menagerie, and kept there during the few days that it survived. When it died, it was sent to the American Museum, and this may easily prove to be the last living record for that species. In reality, this species might as well be listed with those totally extinct. Formerly, it ranged from the Antilles to Ohio and Ontario, and the causes of its blotting out are not yet definitely known. This ocean-going bird once had a wide range overseas in the temperate areas of the North Atlantic. It is recorded from Ulster County, New York, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, and Florida. It was about the size of a common term. The California condor. Gymnogips californianus. I feel that the existence of this species hangs on a very slender thread. This is due to its alarmingly small range. The insignificant number of individuals now living, the openness of the species to attack, and the danger of its extinction by poison. Originally, this remarkable bird, the largest North American bird of prey, ranged as far northward as the Columbia River, and southward for an unknown distance. Now its range is reduced to seven counties in southern California, although it is said to extend from Monterey Bay to lower California, and eastward to Arizona. Regarding the present state and future of this bird, I have been greatly disturbed in mind. When a unique and zoologically important species becomes reduced in its geographic range to a small section of a single state, it seems to me quite time for alarm. For some time I have counted this bird as one of those threatened with early extermination, and as I think with good reason. In view of the swift calamities that now seem able to fall on species like thunderbolts out of clear skies, and wipe them off the earth even before we know that such a fate is impending, no species of seven county distribution is safe. Any species that is limited to a few counties of a single state is liable to be wiped out in five years by poison, or traps, or lack of food. Image, California condor, now living in the New York Zoological Park. On order to obtain the best and also the most conservative information regarding this species, I appealed to the curator of the Museum of Vertebert Zoology of the University of California. Although written in the Mountain Wilds, I promptly received the valuable contribution that appears below. As a clear, precise, and conservative survey of an important species, it is really a model document. The Status of the California Condor in 1912 by Joseph Grinnell. To my knowledge, the California Condor has been definitely observed within the past five years in the following California counties. Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Kern, and Tulare. In parts of Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Kern counties, this species is still fairly common for a large bird, probably equal in numbers to the golden eagle in those regions that are suited to it. By suitable country, I mean cattle raising mountainous territory, of which there are still vast areas, and which are not likely to be put to any other use for a very long time, if ever, on account of the lack of water. While in Kern County last April, I was informed by a reliable man who lives near the Tejon Rancho that he had counted 25 condors in a single day since January 1st of the present year. These were on the Tejon Rancho, which is an enormous cattle range covering parts of the Teja Chape and San Amigdio Mountains. Their present state law provides complete protection for the condor and its eggs, and the State Fish and Game Commission in granting permits for collectors always adds the phrase, except the California condor and its eggs. I know of two special permits having been issued, but neither of these were used, that is no specimens have been taken since 1908, as far as I am aware. In my travels about the state, I have found that practically everyone knows that the condor is protected. Still, there is always the hunting element who do not hesitate to shoot anything alive out of the ordinary, and a certain percentage of the condors are doubtless picked off each year by such criminals. It is possible also that the mercenary egg collector continues to take his annual rents, though if this is done, it is kept very quiet. It is my impression that the present fatalities from all sources are fully balanced by the natural rate of increase. There is one factor that has militated against the condor more than any other one thing, namely the restriction in its food source. Its forage range formerly included most of the great valleys adjacent to the mountain retreats, but now the valleys are almost entirely devoted to agriculture, and of course far more thickly settled than formerly. The mountainous areas where the condor is making its last stand seem to me likely to remain adapted to the bird's existence for many years, fifty years if not longer. Of course this is conditional upon the maintenance and enforcement of the present laws. There is also the enlightenment of public sentiment in regard to the preservation of wildlife, which I believe can be depended upon. This is a matter of general education, which is fortunately and with no doubt whatever progressing at a quite perceptible rate. Yes, I should say that the condor has a fair chance to survive in limited numbers. Another bird which in my opinion is far nearer extinction than the condor so far as California is concerned is the white-tailed kite. This is a perfectly harmless bird, but one which harries over the marshes where it has been an easy target for the idle duck hunter. Then too its range was limited to the valley bottoms where human settlement is increasingly close. I know of only two live pairs within the state last year. Finally let me remark that the rate of increase of the California condor is not one-wit less than that of the band-tilled pigeon, yet there is no protection at all for the latter in this state even in the nesting season and thousands were shot last spring and the unprecedented concentration of the species in the southern coast counties. See chambers in the condor for May 1912, page 108. The California condor is one of only two species of condor now living and it is the only one found in North America. As a matter of national pride and a duty to posterity the people of the United States can far better afford to lose a million dollars from their national treasury and to allow that bird to become extinct. Its preservation for all coming time is distinctly a white man's burden upon the state of California. The laws now enforced for the condor's protection are not half adequate. I think there is no law by which the accidental poisoning of those birds by baits put out for coyotes and foxes can be stopped. A law to prevent the use of poisoned meat baits anywhere in southern California should be enacted at the next session of California's legislature. The fine for molesting a condor should be raised to five hundred dollars with a long prison term as an alternative. A competent, interested game warden should be appointed solely for the protection of condors. It is time to count those birds, keep them under observation, and have an annual report upon their condition. The Heath hen. But for the protection that has been provided for it by the ornithologists of Massachusetts and particularly Dr. George W. Field, William Brewster, and John E. Thayer, the Heath hen, or eastern pinnaded grouse, would years ago have become totally extinct. New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts began to protect that species entirely too late. It was given five-year closed seasons without a veil. Then it was given ten-year closed seasons, but it was too late. Today the species exists only in one locality, the island of Martha's Vineyard, and concerning its present status, Mr. Forbush has recently furnished us the following clear statement. The Heath hens increased for two years after the Massachusetts Fish and Game Commission established a reservation for them, but in 1911 they had not increased. There are probably about two hundred birds extinct. I found a great many marsh hawks on the island and the commission did not kill them, believing them to be beneficial. In watching them I concluded that they were catching the young Heath hens. A large number of these hawks have been shot and their stomachs sent to Washington for examination, as I was too busy at the time to examine them. So far as I know no report of the examination has been made, but Dr. Field himself examined a few of the stomachs and found the remains of the Heath hen in some. The warden now says that during the past two years the Heath hen has not increased, but I can give you no definite evidence of this. I am quite sure they are being killed by natives of the island and that at least one collector supplies birds for museums. We are trying to get evidence of this. I believe that if the Heath hen is to be increased in numbers and brought back to this country we shall have to have more than one warden on the reservation and eventually we shall have to establish the bird on the mainland also. Image from the American natural history. Pinnaded Grouse or Prairie Chicken. The Pinnaded Grouse, Sage Grouse and Prairie Sharptail. In view of the fate of the Grouse of the United States, as it has been wrought out thus far in all the more thickly settled areas, and particularly in view of the history of the Heath hen, we have no choice but to regard all three of the species named above as absolutely certain to become totally extinct within a short period of years unless the conditions surrounding them are immediately and radically changed for the better. Personally I do not believe that the gunners and game hogs of Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California will permit any one of those species to be saved. If the present open seasons prevail in the states that I have mentioned above, no power on earth can save those three species of Grouse from the fate of the Heath hen. Today their representatives exist only in small shreds and patches and from fully 1920th of their original ranges they are forever gone. The Sage Grouse will be the first species to go. It is the largest, the most conspicuous, the one most easily found, and the biggest mark for the gunner. Those who have seen this bird in its native sagebrush well understand how fatally it is exposed to slaughter. Many appeals have been made on behalf of the pinnaded Grouse, but the open seasons continue. The gunners of the states in which a few remnants still exist are determined to have them, all, and the state legislatures seem disposed to allow the killers to have their way. It may be, however, that like New York with the Heath hen, they will arouse and virtuously lock the stable door after the horse has been stolen. Image, Sage Grouse, the first of the upland game birds that will become extinct. The Snowy Egret and American Egret, Egretta Candidissima, and Herodias Egretta. These unfortunate birds, cursed for all time by the commercially valuable Egret plumes that they bear, have had a very narrow escape from total extinction in the United States, despite all efforts made to save them. The plume hunters of the millinery trade have been, and still are, determined to have the last feather and the last drop of Egret blood. In an effort to stop the slaughter in at least one locality in Florida, Warden Guy Bradley was killed by a plume hunter, who, of course, escaped all punishment through the heaven-born sympathy of a local jury. Of the bloody Egret slaughter in Florida, not one-tenth of the whole story has ever been told. Millions of adult birds, all there were, were killed in the breeding season, when the plumes were ripe for the market, and millions of young birds starved in their nests. It was a common thing for a rookery of several hundred birds to be attacked by the plume hunters, and in two or three days, utterly destroyed. The same bloody work is going on today in Venezuela and Brazil, and the stories in affidavits stating that the millions of Egret plumes being shipped annually from those countries are shed feathers, picked up off the ground, are absolute lies. The men who have sworn to those lies are perjurers, and should be punished for their crimes. By 1908, the plume hunter said so far won the fight for the Egrets that Florida had been swept almost as bare of these birds as the Colorado Desert. Until Mr. E. A. McKillanee's Egret preserve at Avery Island, Louisiana, became a pronounced success, we had believed that our two Egrets soon would become totally extinct in the United States. But Mr. McKillanee has certainly saved those birds to our fauna. In 1892 he started an Egret and Heron preserve, close beside his house on Avery Island. By 1900 it was an established success. Today twenty thousand pairs of Egrets and Herons are living and breeding in that bird refuge, and the two Egret species are safe in at least one spot in our own country. Image photo by Mr. E. A. McKillanee Snowy Egrets and the McKillanee Egret preserve It is at this period that the parent birds are killed for their plumes and the young starve in the nest. Three years ago I think there were not many bird lovers in the United States who believed it possible to prevent the total extinction of both Egrets from our fauna. All the known rookeries accessible to plume hunters had been totally destroyed. Two years ago the secret discovery of several small hidden colonies prompted William Dutcher, president of the National Association of Audubon Societies, and Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson Secretary to attempt the protection of those colonies. With the fund contributed for the purpose wardens were hired and duly commissioned. As previously stated one of those wardens was shot dead in cold blood by a plume hunter. The task of guarding swamp rookeries from the attacks of money-hungry Jesperados to whom the accursed plumes were worth their weight and gold is a very chancey proceeding. There is now one warden in Florida who says that before they get my rookery they will have to first get me. Thus far the protective work of the Audubon Association has been successful. Now there are 20 colonies which contain all told about 5,000 Egrets and about 120,000 Herons and Ibises which are guarded by the Audubon Wardens. One of the most important is on Bird Island a mile out in Orange Lake, Central Florida and is ably defended by Oscar E. Baynard. Today the plume hunters who do not dare to raid the guarded rookeries are trying to study out the lines of flight of the birds to and from their feeding grounds and shoot them in transit. Their motto is anything to beat the law and get the plumes. It is there that the state of Florida should take part in the war. The success of this campaign is attested by the fact that last year a number of Egrets were seen in Eastern Massachusetts for the first time in many years. And so today the question is can the Wardens continue to hold the plume hunters at bay? The Wood Duck Aix Sponza By many bird lovers regarded as the most beautiful of all American birds is threatened with extinction in all the states that it still inhabits with the exception of eight. Long ago, 1901 the US biological survey sounded a general alarm for this species by the issue of a special bulletin regarding its disappearance and advising its protection by long closed seasons. To their everlasting honor eight states responded by the enactment of long closed season laws. This is the role of honor Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, West Virginia. And how is it with the other states that number the Wood Duck in their avian faunas? I am ashamed to tell but it is necessary that the truth should be known. Surely we will find that if the other states have not the grace to protect this bird on account of its exquisite beauty they will not penalize it by extra long open seasons. A number of them have taken pains to provide extra long open seasons on this species usually of five or six months. And this for a bird so exquisitely beautiful that shooting it for the table is like dining on birds of paradise. Here is a partial list of them. Wood Duck Eating States, 1912 Georgia kills and eats the Wood Duck from September 1st to February 1st Indiana, Iowa and Kansas do so from September 1st to April 15th Kentucky extra long does so August 15th to April 1st Louisiana, September 1st to March 1st Maryland, November 1st to April 1st Michigan, October 15th to January 1st Nebraska, September 1st to April 1st Ohio, September 1st to January 1st Pennsylvania, September 1st to April 11th Rhode Island, August 15th to April 1st South Carolina, September 1st to March 1st South Dakota, September 10th to April 10th Tennessee, August 1st to April 15th Virginia, August 1st to January 1st Wisconsin, September 1st to January 1st The Ababa are the states that really possess the Wood Duck and that should give it one in all a series of five year close seasons Now is not the record something to blush for? Is there in those 15 states nothing too beautiful or too good to go in the pot? Image, Wood Duck, regularly killed as food in 15 states The Woodcock, Filohila Minor is a bird regarding which my bird hunting friends and I do not agree I say that as a species it is steadily disappearing and presently will become extinct unless it is accorded better protection They reply, well I can show you where there are Woodcock yet A few months ago a Nova Scotian rider in forest and stream came out with the bold prediction that three more years of the usual annual slaughter of Woodcock will bring the species to the verge of extinction in that province It is such occurrences as this that bring the end of a species Last fall, 1911 at Norwalk, Connecticut We had a good flight of Woodcock and it is a shame the way they were slaughtered I know of a number of cases where 20 were killed by one gun in the day and heard of one case of 50 This is all wrong and means the end of the Woodcock if continued There is no doubt we need a bag limit on Woodcock as much as on quail or partridge Woodcock in forest and stream, March 2nd, 1912 As far back as 1901 Dr. A. K. Fisher of the Biological Survey predicted that the Woodcock and Woodduck would both become extinct unless better protected As yet the better protection demanded has not materialized to any great extent Says Mr. Forbush State Ornithologist of Massachusetts in his admirable special report, page 45 The Woodcock is decreasing all over its range in the east and needs the strongest protection Of 38 Massachusetts reports, 36 state that the Woodcock are decreasing, rare, or extinct Well, one states that they are holding their own and one that they are increasing slightly since the law was passed prohibiting their sale Let not any honest American or Canadian sportsman lullaby himself into the belief that the Woodcock is safe from extermination As sure as the world it is going The fact that a little pocket here or there contains a few birds does not in the slightest degree disprove the main fact If the sportsmen of this country desire to save the seed stock of woodcock they must give it everywhere five or ten year closed seasons and do it immediately Our shorebirds in general This group of game birds will be the first to be exterminated in North America as a group Of all our birds these are the most illy fitted to survive They are very conspicuous, very unwary, easy to find if alive and easy to shoot Never in my life of any shorebirds except Woodcock and Snipe appeal to me as real game They are too easy to kill, too trivial and killed, and some of them are too rank and fishy on the plate As game for men I put them on a level with barnyard ducks or orchard turkeys I would as soon be caught stealing a sheep as to be seen trying to shoot fishy yellow legs or little joke sandpipers for the purpose of feeding upon them And yet thousands of full grown men some of them six feet high Grow indignant and turn red in the face at the mention of a law to give all the shorebirds of New York a five year closed season But for all that gentlemen of the gun there are exactly two alternatives between which you shall choose one Either give the woodcock of the eastern united states just 10 times the protection that it now has Or two bid the species along farewell If you elect to slaughter old phylohylamine or on the altar of selfishness Then it will be in order for the millions of people who do not kill birds to say whether that proposal shall be consummated or not Read if you please mr. W. A. McAteese convincing pamphlet biological survey number 79 On our vanishing shorebirds Reproduced in full in chapter 23 He says Throughout the eastern united states shorebirds are fast vanishing Many of them have been so reduced that extermination seems imminent So averse to shorebirds are present conditions that the wonder is that any escape All the shorebirds of the united states are in great need of better protection Shorebirds have been hunted until only remnant of their once vast numbers are left Their limited powers of reproduction coupled with the natural vicissitudes of the breeding period Make their increase slow and peculiarly expose them to the danger of extermination So great is their economic value that their retention in the game list and their destruction by sportsmen is a serious loss to agriculture And yet here in new york state There are many men who think they know who indignantly scoff at the idea that our shorebirds need a five year close season to help Save them from annihilation The writer's appeal for this at a recent convention of the new york state fish game and forest league fell upon deaf ears And was not even seriously discussed The shorebirds must be saved and just at present It seems that the only persons who will do it are those who are not sportsmen and who never kill game If the sportsmen persist in refusing to act to them we must appeal Besides the woodcock and snipe the species that are most seriously threatened with extinction at an early date are the following Will it dowager Not red-breasted sandpiper Upland plover golden plover pectoral sandpiper Of these fine species mr. Four bush whose excellent knowledge of the shorebirds of the atlantic coast is well worth the most serious consideration Says that the upland plover or bartramanian sandpiper is in imminent danger of extinction Five reports from localities where this bird formerly bred give it as nearing extinction and four as extinct This is one of the most useful of all birds in grassland feeding largely on grasshoppers and cutworms There is no difference of opinion in regard to the diminution of the shorebirds The reports from all quarters are the same It is noteworthy that practically all observers agree that considering all species these birds have fallen off about 75 Percent within 25 to 40 years and that several species are nearly extirpated In 1897 when the zoological society published my report on the extermination of our birds and mammals We put down the decrease in the volume of bird life in massachusetts during the previous 15 years at 27 percent The later and more elaborate investigations of mr. Four bush have satisfactorily vindicated the accuracy of that estimate There are other north american birds that easily might be added to the list of those now on the road to oblivion But surely the foregoing citations are sufficient to reveal the present desperate conditions of our bird life in general Now the question is what are the great american people going to do about it? Image the gray squirrel a familiar friend when protected The gray squirrel The gray squirrel is in danger of extermination Although it is our most beautiful and companionable small wild animal and really unfit for food Americans have strangely elected to class it as game and shoot it to death to eat And this install fed america in the 20th century Americans are the only white people in the world to eat squirrels It would be just as reasonable and no more barbarous to kill domestic cats and eat them Their flesh would taste quite as good as squirrel flesh and some of them would afford quite as good sport Every intelligent person knows that in the united states The deadly shotgun is rapidly exterminating every bird and every small mammal that is classed as game And which legally may be killed Even during two months of the 12 The market gunners slaughtered ducks grouse shorebirds and rabbits as if we were all starving The beautiful gray squirrel has clung to life in a few of our forests and woodlots Long after most other wild mammals have disappeared But throughout at least 95 percent of its original area it is now extinct During the past 30 years I have roamed the woods of my state in several widely separated localities The Adirondacks, Catskills, Berkshires, Western New York and elsewhere And in all that time I have seen only three wild gray squirrels outside of city parks Except over a very small total area the gray squirrel is already gone from the wild fauna of new york state Do the well fed people of america wish to have this beautiful animal entirely exterminated? Do they wish the woods to become wholly lifeless? Or do they desire to bring back some of the wild creatures and keep them for their children to enjoy? There is no wild mammal that responds to protection more quickly than the gray squirrel In two years time wild specimens that are set free in city parks learn that they are safe from harm And become almost fearless They take food from the hands of visitors and climb into their arms One of the most pleasing sights of the zoological park is the enjoyment of visitors young and old In petting our wild gray squirrels We ask the Boy Scouts of America to bring back this animal to each state where it belongs By securing for it from legislators and governors the perpetual closed seasons that it imperatively needs It is not much to ask This can be done by writing to members of the legislatures and requesting a suitable law Such a request will be both right and reasonable and three states have already granted it The gray squirrel is naturally the children's closest wild animal friend Surely every farmer boy would like to have colonies of gray squirrels around him to keep him company and furnish him with entertainment A wood lot without squirrels and chipmunks is indeed a lifeless place For twenty dollars anyone can restock any bit of woods with the most companionable and most beautiful tree-dweller that nature has given us The question now is which will you choose a gray squirrel colony to every farm Or lifeless desolation We ask every american to lend a hand to save silvertail End of chapter three Chapter four of our vanishing wildlife. This is the lipervox recording. All lipervox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit lipervox.org Our vanishing wildlife by william t. Hornaday Chapter four extinct and nearly extinct species of mammals When we pause and consider the years the generations and the ages that nature spends in the production of a high vertebrate species The preservation of such species from extermination should seriously concern us As a matter of fact in modern man's wild chase after wealth and pleasure It is only one person out of every ten thousand who pauses to regard such causes Unless cornered by some protectionist fanatic held fast and coerced to listen We are not discussing the animals of the Pleistocene or the Iocene or any period of the far distant past We are dealing with species that have been ruthlessly needlessly and wickedly destroyed by man during our own times Species that had they been given a fair chance would be alive and well today In reckless waste of blood and treasure the 19th century has much for which to answer Wars and pillage fires earthquakes and volcanoes are unhappily unavoidable Like the poor of holy writ we have them with us always But the destruction of animal life is in a totally different category from the accidental calamities of life It is deliberate cold-blooded persistent and in its final stage criminal Worst of all there is no limit to the devilish persistence of the confirmed destroyer this side of the total extinction of species No polar night is too cold. No desert inferno is too hot for the man who pursues wildlife for commercial purposes The retina has been exterminated in the far north the elephant seals uncurguling are being exterminated in the far south And midway in the desert mountains of lower california a fine species of mountain sheep is rapidly being shot into oblivion Large mammals completely exterminated The arizona elk service mirianum Right at our very door under our very noses and as it were only yesterday a well-defined species of american elk has been totally exterminated Until recently the mountains of arizona and new mexico were inhabited by a light colored elk of smaller size Than the wyoming species whose antlers possessed on each side only one brow tine instead of two The exact history of the blotting out of that species has not yet been written But it seems that its final extinction occurred about 1901 Its extermination was only a routine incident of the devilish general slaughter of american big game that by 1900 had wiped out nearly everything killable over a large range of the rocky mountain region and the great plains The arizona elk was exterminated before the separate standing of the species had been discovered by naturalist And before even one skin had been preserved in a museum In 1902 mr. E. W. Nelson described the species from two male skulls all the material of which he knew Since that time a third male skull bearing an excellent pair of antlers has been discovered by mr. Ferdinand Keegeben a member of the new york zoological society and presented to our national collection of heads and horns It came from the santa catalina mountains arizona in 1884 The species was first exterminated in the central and northern mountains of arizona Probably 20 years ago and made its last stand in northwestern new mexico Precisely when it became extinct there its last abiding place. We do not know but in time the facts may appear the quagga equus quagga Before the days of living stone gordon coming and anderson the grassy plains and half forested hills of south africa Were inhabited by great herds of a wild equine species that in its markings was a sort of connecting link Between the stripe zebras and the stripless wild asses The quagga resembled a wild ass with a few zebra stripes around its neck and no stripes elsewhere There is no good reason why a mammal that is not in any one of the families regularly eaten by man Should be classed as a game animal White men outside of the western border of the continent of europe do not eat horses And by this token there is no reason why a zebra should be shot as a game animal any more than a baboon A big male baboon is dangerous a male zebra is not Nevertheless white men have elected to shoot zebras as game and under this curse the unfortunate quagga fell to rise no more The species was shot to a speedy death by sportsmen and by the british and dutch farmers of south africa It became extinct about 1875 and today there are only 18 specimens in all the museums of the world The first of the african antelopes to become extinct in modern times was a species of large size closely related to the rhone antelope of today and named by the early dutch settlers of cape colony The blahbuck which means blue buck it was snuffed out of existence in the year 1800 So quickly and so thoroughly that like the arizona elk it very nearly escaped the annals of natural history According to the careful investigations of mr. Graham renshaw There are only eight specimens in existence in all the museums of europe In general terms it may be stated that this species has been extinct for about a century David's deer elifurus davidianus We enter this species with those that are totally extinct because this is true of it so far as its wild state is concerned It is a deer nearly as large as the red deer of europe with three tined antlers about equal in total length To those of the red deer its most striking differential character is its long tail a feature that among the deer of the world is quite unique Originally this species inhabited northern mongolia china But in a wild state it became extinct before its zoological standing became known to the scientific world The species was called to the attention of zoologists by a roman catholic missionary called father david And when finally described it was named in his honor At the outbreak of the boxer rebellion in 1900 there were about 200 specimens living in the imperial park of china A short distance south of piquing But during the rebellion all of them were killed and eaten thus totally exterminating the species from asia Fortunately previous to that calamity in 1894 The duke of bedford had by considerable effort and expenditure procured and established in his matchless park Surrounding woeburn abbey england a herd of 18 specimens of this rarest of all deer That nucleus has driven and increased until in 1910 it contained 34 head Owing to the fact that all the living female specimens of this remarkable species are concentrated in one spot And perfectly liable to be wiped out in one year by riot war or disease There is some cause for anxiety The writer has gone so far as to suggest the desirability of starting a new herd of david's deer at some point far distant from england As an insurance measure against the possibility of calamity at woeburn Accepting two or three specimens in european zoological gardens that have been favored by the duke of bedford There are no living specimens outside of woeburn park The retina retina gigas The most northerly sirenian that so far as we know ever inhabited the earth Lived on the commander islands in the northern end of bering sea and was exterminated by man for its oil and its flesh about 1768 It was first made known to the world by stellar in 1741 and must have become extinct near the beginning of the 19th century The retina belonged to the same mammalian order as the manatee of florida and south america and the dugong of australia The largest manatee that florida has produced so far as we know was 13 feet long The retina attained a length of between 30 and 35 feet and a weight of 6 000 pounds or over The flesh of this animal like that of the manatee in dugong must have been edible And surely was prized by the hungry sailors and natives of its time It is not strange that such a species was quickly exterminated by man in the arctic regions The wonder is that it ever existed at a latitude so outrageous for a sirenian an animal which by all precedents Would prefer life in temperate or warm waters The foundation type of what is now the birchell group of zebras consisting of four or five subspecies of the original species of Birchellis is an animal abundantly striped as to its body neck and head But with legs that are almost white and free from stripes The subspecies have legs that are striped about half as much as the mountain zebra and the grevy species While there are Chapman zebras and Grant zebras In plenty and of crosshays not a few all these are forms that have developed northward of the range of the parent species The original equus birchellis For half a century in South Africa the latter had been harried and driven and shot and now it is gone forever Now the museum people of the world are hungrily enumerating their mounted specimens And live ones cannot be procured with money because there are none Already it is common to see the animals in the wild Already it is common talk that the true birchell zebra is extinct and unfortunately there is no good reason to doubt it Even if there are few now living in some remote nook of transval or zulu land or portuguese east africa The chances are as a hundred to one that they will not be suffered to bring back the species And so to birchell zebra the world is today saying farewell The thylacine or Tasmanian wolf thylacinus sciencephalus Four years ago when Mr. W. H. D. Lissouf director of the melbourne zoological garden Australia Stood before the cage of the living thylacine in the new york zoological park He first expressed surprised at the sight of the animal then said I advise you to take excellent care of that specimen for when it is gone You will never get another the species will soon be extinct This opinion has been supported quite independently By a lady who is the highest authority on the present status of that species Mrs. Mary G roberts of hobart Tasmania For nearly 10 years. Mrs. Roberts has been procuring all the living specimens of the thylacine that money could buy And attempting to breed them at her private zoo She states that the mountain home of this animal is now occupied by flocks of sheep And because of the fact that the Tasmanian wolves raid the flocks and kill lambs The sheep owners and herders are systematically poisoning the thalacines as fast as possible In as much as the species is limited to Tasmania Mrs. Roberts and others fear that the sheepmen will totally exterminate the remnant at an early date This animal is the largest and also the most interesting carnivorous marsupial of Australia And its untimely end will be a cause for sincere regret The west indian seal Monarchus tropicalis For at least 50 years all the zoologists who ever had heard of this species believed that the oil hunters had completely exterminated it In 1885 when the national museum came into possession of one poorly mounted skin from professor poe of havana It was regarded as a great prize Most unexpectedly in 1886 American zoologists were startled by the discovery of a small herd on the triangle islands in the caribbean Sea near yucatan by mr. Henry l ward now director of the milwaukey public museum and professor ferrari of the national museum of mexico They found about 20 specimens and collected only a sufficient number to establish the true character of the species Since that time four living specimens have been captured and sent to the new york aquarium where they lived for satisfactory periods The indoor life and atmosphere did not seem to injure the natural vitality of the animals In fact, I think they were far more lively in the aquarium Then were the sluggish creatures that mr. Ward saw on the triangle reefs and described in his report of the expedition It is quite possible that there are yet alive a few specimens of this odd species But the democletian sword of destruction hangs over them suspended by a fine hair And it is to be expected that in the future some roving sea adventurer will pounce upon the remnant and wipe it out of existence For whatever reason may to him seem good The california elephant seal marunga angosterostris This remarkable long snouted species of seal was reluctantly stricken from the fauna of the united states several years ago And for at least 15 years it has been regarded as totally extinct Last year. However, 1911 The albatross scientific expedition under the control of director c.h. Townsend of the new york aquarium Visited guadaloupe island 175 miles off the pacific coast of lower california and there found about 150 living elephant seals They took six living specimens all of which died after a few months in captivity Ever since that time first one person and then another comes to the front with a cheerful proposition To go to those islands and clean up the remainder of those wonderful seals One hunting party could land on guadaloupe and in one week totally destroy the last remnant of this almost extinct species Today the only question is who will be mean enough to do it Fortunately, those seals have no commercial value whatsoever The little oil they would yield would not pay the wages of a cooksmate The proven impossibility of keeping specimens alive in captivity even for one year And the absence of cash value in the skins even for museum purposes has left nothing of value in the animals To justify an expedition to kill or to capture them No zoological garden or park desires any of them at any price Adult males attain a length of 16 feet and females 11 feet Formerly this species was abundant in san cristal bowl bay lower california At present mexico is in no frame of mind to provide real protection to a small colony of seals of no commercial value 175 miles from her mainland on an uninhabited island It is wildly improbable that those seals will be permitted to live It is a safe prediction that our next news of the elephant seals of guadaloupe Will tell of the total extinction of those last 140 survivors of the species The california grizzly bear ursis horribilis californicus No one protects grizzly bears except in the yellowstone park and other game preserves For obvious reasons it is impossible to say whether any individuals of this huge species now remain alive Or how long it will be until the last one falls before a 405 winchester engine of extermination We know that a living specimen cannot be procured with money And we believe that the old monarch now in golden gate park san francisco Is the last specimen of his species that will ever be exhibited alive I can think of no reason save general california apathy why the extension of this huge and remarkable animal was not prevented by law The sunset grizzly on a railroad track is the advertising emblem of the golden state And surely this state should take sufficient interest in the species to prevent its total extermination But it will not california is hell-bent on exterminating a long list of her wildlife species And it is very doubtful whether the masses can be reached and aroused in time to stop it Name some of the species Certainly with all the pleasure in life The band-tailed pigeon the white-tailed kite the sharp-tailed grouse the sage grouse the mountain sheep pronghorned antelope california mule deer and ducks and geese too numerous to mention end of chapter four