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CHAPTER III

THE NEXT CANDIDATES FOR OBLIVION

In the world of human beings, murder is the most serious of all crimes. To take from a man that which no one ever can 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 hippopotami that Mr. Dugmore 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-tame 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 can not give back to it—its God-given place in the ranks of Living Things. Where is 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 Mehal 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. To-day 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 per-cent 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 marvelous Rhinoceros indicus is being rushed into oblivion. We marvel at the fossil shell of the gigantic turtle called Collosochelys atlas, while the last living representatives of the gigantic land tortoises are being exterminated in the Galapagos Islands and the Sychelles, for their paltry oil and meat; and only one man (Hon. Walter Rothschild) is doing aught to save any of them in their haunts, where they can breed. The dodo of Mauritius 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 hall-mark 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 now is 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 Petrel
American Flamingo	American Egret
Roseate Spoonbill	Snowy Egret
Scarlet Ibis	Wood Duck
Long-Billed Curlew	Band-Tailed Pigeon
Hudsonian Godwit	Heath Hen
Upland Plover	Sage Grouse
Red-Breasted Sandpiper	Prairie Sharp-Tail
Golden Plover	Pinnated Grouse
Dowitcher	White-Tailed Kite
Willet

The Whooping Crane.—This splendid 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 Grus americanus with profound sorrow, for on this continent we ne'er shall see his like again.

The well-nigh total disappearance of this species has been brought close 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 gentlemen has been offering $1,000 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 16th, 1907, and by John F. Ferry, who saw one at Big Quill Lake, 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.

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 $100 to $150 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 Roseate Spoonbill are three of the most beautiful and curious water-haunting 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. From Florida these birds quickly vanished. The six great breeding colonies of Flamingoes on Andros Island, Bahamas, have been reduced to two, and from Prof. E.A. Goeldi, of the State Museum Goeldi, 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 fishermen'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 neck and head, as is the case with our species.

If the American flamingo, scarlet ibis and roseate 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 "Bartramian Sandpiper."—Apparently this is the next shore-bird 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. E.H. Forbush [B] wrote of it as follows:

"The Bartramian 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 grass land, feeding largely on grasshoppers and cutworms. It is one of the finest of all birds for the table. An effort should be made at once to save this useful species."

The Black-Capped Petrel, (Aestrelata hasitata).—This species is already recorded in the A.O.U. "Check list" 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 petrel 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 of the size of the common tern.

The California Condor, (Gymnogyps 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 status and the 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.

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 Vertebrate 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 the 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 twenty-five condors in a single day, since January 1 of the present year. These were on the Tejon Rancho, which is an enormous cattle range covering parts of the Tehachapi and San Emigdio Mountains.

"Our 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 and 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 its 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 wild life, 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 whit less than that of the band-tailed 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, in the unprecedented concentration of the species in the southern coast counties. (See Chambers in The Condor for May, 1912, p. 108.)"

The California Condor is one of the 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 than 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 in force 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 $500, with a long prison-term as an alternative. A competent, interested game warden should be appointed solely for the protection of the 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 pinnated 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 close seasons, without avail. Then it was given ten-year close seasons, but it was too late!

To-day, 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 extant.

"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 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."

From the "American Natural History"

PINNATED GROUSE, OR "PRAIRIE CHICKEN"

The Pinnated Grouse, Sage Grouse And Prairie Sharp-Tail.—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.

SAGE GROUSE The First of the Upland Game Birds that will Become Extinct

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. To-day their representatives exist only in small shreds and patches, and from fully nineteen-twentieths 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 sage-brush well understand how fatally it is exposed to slaughter.

Many appeals have been made in behalf of the pinnated 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!

The Snowy Egret And American Egret, (Egretta candidissima and Herodias egretta).—These unfortunate birds, cursed for all time by the commercially valuable "aigrette" plumes that they bear, have had a very narrow escape from total extinction in the United States, despite all the 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 ever has 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 to-day in Venezuela and Brazil; and the stories and "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. (See Chapter XIII).

By 1908, the plume-hunters had 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. McIlhenny'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. McIlhenny 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. To-day 20,000 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.

Photo by E.A. McIlhenny

SNOWY EGRETS IN THE McILHENNY 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 a 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 desperadoes to whom the accursed plumes were worth their weight in gold, is a very chancy proceeding. There is now one warden in Florida who says that "before they get my rookery they will first have to get me."

Thus far the protective work of the Audubon Association has been successful. Now there are twenty 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 it is ably defended by Oscar E. Baynard. To-day, 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 to-day the question is, can the wardens continue to hold the plume-hunters at bay?

The Wood Duck (Aix sponsa), 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 U.S. 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 close seasons. To their everlasting honor, eight states responded, by the enactment of long close-season laws. This, is the

	Roll Of Honor
Connecticut		New Jersey
Maine		New York
Massachusetts		Vermont
New Hampshire		West Virginia

WOOD DUCK Regularly Killed as "Food" in 15 States

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	Sept. 1,	to Feb. 1.
Indiana, Iowa and Kansas	do so	"	Sept. 1,	to Apr. 15.
Kentucky,	(extra long!)	does so	"	Aug. 15,	to Apr. 1.
Louisiana	(extra long!)	" "	"	Sept. 1,	to Mar. 1.
Maryland		" "	"	Nov. 1,	to Apr. 1.
Michigan		" "	"	Oct. 15,	to Jan. 1.
Nebraska	(extra long!)	" "	"	Sept. 1,	to Apr. 1.
Ohio		" "	"	Sept. 1,	to Jan. 1.
Pennsylvania,	(extra long!)	" "	"	Sept. 1,	to Apr. 11.
Rhode Island,	" "	" "	"	Aug. 15,	to Apr. 1.
South Carolina	" "	" "	"	Sept. 1,	to Mar. 1.
South Dakota	" "	" "	"	Sept. 10,	to Apr. 10.
Tennessee	" "	" "	"	Aug. 1,	to Apr. 15.
Virginia		" "	"	Aug. 1,	to Jan. 1.
Wisconsin		" "	"	Sept. 1,	to Jan. 1.

The above are the states that really possess the wood-duck and that should give it, one and all, a series of five-year close seasons. Now, is not the record something to blush for?

Is there in those fifteen states nothing too beautiful or too good to go into the pot?

The Woodcock (Philohela 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 writer 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, Conn.] 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 twenty were killed by one gun in the day, and heard of one case of fifty. 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, Mar. 2, 1912.)

As far back as 1901, Dr. A.K. Fisher of the Biological Survey predicted that the woodcock and wood-duck 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," p. 45:

"The woodcock is decreasing all over its range in the East, and needs the strongest protection. Of thirty-eight Massachusetts reports, thirty-six state that "woodcock are decreasing," "rare" or "extinct," while 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 close seasons, and do it immediately!

Our Shore Birds 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 have any shore birds except woodcock and snipe appealed to me as real game. They are too easy to kill, too trivial when killed, and some of them are too rank and fishy on the plate. As game for men I place 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 shore-birds of New York a five-year close season.

But for all that, gentlemen of the gun, there are exactly two alternatives between which you shall choose:

(1) Either give the woodcock of the eastern United States just ten times the protection that it now has, or (2) bid the species a long farewell. If you elect to slaughter old Philohela minor 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. McAtee's convincing pamphlet (Biological Survey, No. 79), on "Our Vanishing Shore Birds," reproduced in full in Chapter XXIII. He says: "Throughout the eastern United States, shore birds are fast vanishing. Many of them have been so reduced that extermination seems imminent. So averse to shore birds are present conditions [of slaughter] that the wonder is that any escape. All the shore birds of the United States are in great need of better protection. … Shore birds have been hunted until only a 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 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 shore birds 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 shore-birds 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:

Species In Great Danger
Willet	Catoptrophorus semipalmatus
Dowitcher	Macrorhamphus griseus
Knot: Red-Breasted Sandpiper	Tryngites subruficollis
Upland Plover	Bartramia longicauda
Golden Plover	Charadrius dominicus
Pectoral Sandpiper	Pisobia maculata

Of these fine species, Mr. Forbush, whose excellent knowledge of the shore birds of the Atlantic coast is well worth the most serious consideration, says that the upland plover, or Bartramian 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 grass land, feeding largely on grasshoppers and cutworms. … There is no difference of opinion in regard to the diminution of the shore birds; 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 per cent within twenty-five to forty 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 fifteen years at twenty-seven per cent. The later and more elaborate investigations of Mr. Forbush 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?

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 in stall-fed America, in the twentieth century! Americans are the only white people in the world who 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 shot-gun 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 twelve. The market gunners slaughter ducks, grouse, shore birds and rabbits as if we were all starving.

The beautiful gray squirrel has clung to life in a few of our forests and wood-lots, long after most other wild mammals have disappeared; but throughout at least ninety-five per cent, of its original area, it is now extinct. During the past thirty 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 legislatures 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 $20 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 Silver-Tail.