The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1900-05-04
A BIRD TALK.
THE COMMON BIRDS OF THE COUNTRY NOT
DECREASING IN NUMBER.

THE COMMON BIRDS OF THE COUNTRY NOT
DECREASING IN NUMBER.
There is reassuring "Bird Talk"
by John Burroughs in the November
est. 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 so
cieties that are being formed through
out 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. Grows and all kinds
of hawks and owls were destroyed
whenever chance offered. I knew
farmer who every summer caught and
killed all the red-taled 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 then
Staying his best friends, as these large
hawks live almost entirely upon mice
and vermin. The redtail, or hen hawk
is very wary of man with a gun, but
he has not yet learned Of danger that
turks in a steel trap on the top of
pole.
Ifa strict account could be kept
with our crows and hawks for 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 sharp
shined haw. are destructive to the
birds and wild fowls; but the others
live mainly upon insects and vermin.
do not share the alarm expressed
in some quarters over the seeming de-
crease in the number of birds. People
are always more or less gloomy in re-
gard to the present things. As we
We srow older the number of beautiful
things in the world seems to be fewer.
"The Indian summer is not what it
used to be; the winters are not so
bracing; the spring is more uncertain,
and honest men are fewer. But there
is not much change after all. The
changeis is mainly with US. l see no
decrease in the great body ofour COM
mon field, orchard or wood birds. l
do not see the cliff swallows l used to
see in my youth; they go farther
north, to Northern New England and
Canada. At Rangely Lake, in Maine,
| saw the caves of a barn as crowded
with their mud nests as | used to see
the ewes of my fathers barns amid the
Catskills. In the cliffs along the Yu-
kon in Alaska they are said to swarm
in great numbers. Nearly all our
game-birds are decreasing in numbers,
because sportsmen are more nu-
merous and skillful, and their guns
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
fields of the south. The bluebiads and
hermit-thrushes were threatened with
extinction by cold wave and a severe
storm in the Southern States few
years ago. These birds appear to
have been slain by the hundred thous-
and. Bat they are slowly recovering
lost ground, and in ten or more years
will no doubt be as numerous as ever.
l see along the Hudson River fewer
eagles than used to see fifteen years
ago. The collectors and the rifemen
are no doubt responsible for their de-
crease. But the bobins, thrushes,
finches, warblers, blackbirds, orioles,
fy-catchers, vireos and woodpeckers
are quite as abundant as they were
quarter of a century ago, if not more
so.