[Illustration: 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