The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-11-18
A BIRD TALK.
The Common Birds of the Country
Not Decreasing in Number.

There is a rea assuring Bird Talk by
John Burroughs in the November st.
! Nicholas" One of the good signs of the
times, he says is the interest our young
people are taking in the birds and the
numerous clubs and societies that are
being formed throughout the country
for bird protection and cultivation. In
my youth but little was heard about
the birds. They were looked upon as
of little account Many of them were
treated as the farmers natural enemies.
lCrows and all kinds of hawks and
owls were destroyed whenever chance
offered. I knew farmer who every
summer caught and killed all the red
tailed hawks he could. He stood up
poles in his meadows, upon the tops OF
which he would set steel traps. The
hawks, looking for meadow mice, would
alight upon them and be caught. The
farmer was thus Staying his best
friends, as these large hawks live al
most entirely upon mice and vermin.
The redtail, or hen-hawk, is very wary
of a man with gun, but he has not
yet learned of the danger that turks in
a steel trap on the top of pole.
If a strict account could be kept with
our crows and hawks for a year. it
would be found at the end of that time
that most of them had a balance to
their credit. That is, they do us more
good than injury A few of them,
like the fsh-crow and the sharp
Skinned hawk, Cooper's- hawk and the
duck-hawk. are destructive to the
birds and wild fowls: but the others
live mainly upon insects and vermin.
I do not share the alarm expressed in
some quarters over the seeming de-
crease in the number of our birds. Peo-
pie are always more or less gloomy
in regard to the present time and pres
emit things AS we grow older the num-
Der of beautiful things in the world
seems to be fewer 1.-The Indian sum-
mer is not what it used to be; the WIN
ters are not so bracing; the spring IS
more uncertain; and honest men are
fewer But there is not much change,
after all. The change is mainly in us.
see no decrease in the great body Of
our common field, orchard and wood
birds. I do not see the cliff-swallows
used to see in my youth; they go
farther north. to Northern New Eng
land and Canada. At Rangeley Lake.
in Maine, I saw the caves of barns as
crowded with their mud nests as
used to see the caves of my fathers
barns amid the Catsklls. In the cliffs
along the Yukon in Alaska they are
said to swarm in great numbers. Near
ly all our game birds are decreasing in
numbers, because sportsmen are more
and more numerous and skillful, and
their guns more and more deadly. The
bobolinks are fewer than they were
decade or two ago, because they are
slaughtered more and more in the
marshes and rice-felds of the, South.
The bluebirds and hermit thrushes We're
threatened with extinction by cold
wave and a severe storm in the South
ern States, a few years ago. These
birds appear to have been slain by the
hundred thousand But they are slow
ly recovering lost ground, and in ten
or more years will no doubt be as num-
erous as ever I see along the Hudson
River fewer eagles than I used to see
fifteen years ago. The collectors and
the ri1emen are no doubt responsible
for this decrease. But the robins,
thrushes, finches, warblers, blackbirds.
orioles, fy-catchers, vireos and wood
peckers are quite as abundant as they