in dress is as destructive to our feathered friends as are false aims
in science. It is said that the traffic in the skins of our brighter
plumaged birds, arising from their use by the milliners, reaches to
hundreds of thousands annually. I am told of one middleman who
collected from the shooters in one district, in four months, seventy
thousand skins. It is a barbarous taste that craves this kind of
ornamentation. Think of a woman or girl of real refinement appearing
upon the street with her head gear adorned with the scalps of
our songsters!

It is probably true that the number of our birds destroyed by man is
but a small percentage of the number cut off by their natural enemies;
but it is to be remembered that those he destroys are in addition to
those thus cut off, and that it is this extra or artificial destruction
that disturbs the balance of nature. The operation of natural causes
keeps the birds in check, but the greed of the collectors and milliners
tends to their extinction.

I can pardon a man who wishes to make a collection of eggs and birds
for his own private use, if he will content himself with one or two
specimens of a kind, though he will find any collection much less
satisfactory and less valuable than he imagines, but the professional
nest-robber and skin collector should be put down, either by
legis1ation or with dogs and shotguns.

I have remarked above that there is probably very little truth in the
popular notion that snakes can "charm" birds. But two of my
correspondents have each furnished me with an incident from his own
experience, which seems to confirm the popular belief. One of them
writes from Georgia as follows:--