To-day 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."

To-day, the thing that stares me in the face every waking hour, like a
grisly spectre 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 can not be found by
seeking for them. In North America this is to-day 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