The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-05

II Is something much more than passing strange that the family of birds at once the most beautiful the most graceful and the most innocent of all feathered ereat- ures, should be the one that man. or bet ter woman, has chosen as a shining mark for death.
 Stand upon the shore of the Atlantic and lowering upon light wing above the waves you will see gull feathered In delicate pearl gray with wing tips of black and white. Stand upon the shore of one of the great lakes and the same bird vii be found picking up its daily bread from the face of fresh water. Float In your canoe with the current of the Mississippi and your gray clad friend of the Atlantic and the lakes will bear you gentle company Journey across the great plains and the mountains and look toward the Golden Gate and on the surface of the bay waters fall the shadow of the same graceful wing.
 The bird which has seemingly followed you across the continent Is the herring gull scientifically caled Larus argentatus Smithsonianus Its habitat is co-exten- sive with the United States, and with its fellow gulls and the terms 1t Is the bird against which the hand of man, and, if one may so put 1t, the head of woman, have been raised for generations. The gulls and the terms on account of their beauty and the ease with which they are approached and killed have been the mark for the milliners agents ever since fashion dictated the wearing of feathers.
 Saved From Fashions Clutch.
 The gulls and the terms are flying today hrtn clrx a month, through the efforts of the bird pro- lection committee of the American Ornith- ologists' union and the New York State Audubon society, the great Millinery Merchants Protective association of New York has pledged itself 10 cease dealing in these "soft breasted birds of the sea
 Today the Milliners' Association of the West Is in correspondence with the Chi cago directors of the Illinois Audubon So- ciety with view of entering into the same agreement for the west that it's brother association has signed for the east. This action means that great fam fly of beautiful birds doubtless will be saved from the extinction from which it was feared was imminent.
 The public little knows the fight-it was fight, nothing less-that was waged for years before the men who had es- poused the cause of the innocents could claim victory. Uncle Sam took a hand in the fight and put himself at the heaG of the little band of bird partsans. The men who engaged in the conflict had first to overcome that most potent of all weap- ons ridicule. They were called dreamers and "old women," but the blows they struck soon knocked the thought that tl.ey were weakling sentimentalists out of the heads of their antagonists.
 The Black Tern.
 The guls and terms perhaps best known to the people of the United States are the herring gull already named. Bonapartes gull Larus philadelphia, Wilson's tern (Sterna hirundo) and the black tern QIydrochelidon nigra surinamensis). sum of money known as the Thayer fund is being used this year for the protection of the gulls and terms upon their breeding islands along the Atlantic coast The black tern, however, gets little of the ben eft of this protection, for it nests largely in the marshes of the inland. This beau tifu bird. with it's forepart glossy black. which takes on an iridescence in the sun shine, has been shot so ruthlessly that hundreds of It's former haunts know 1t no more Like the herring and the Bonaparte gulls,it Is at home practically in all parts of the temperate North America, or 1t would be at home If man, as haply now he will, would but allow 1t to domesticate it. self.
 The government biological survey Is this summer endeavoring to locate the nesting colonies of the black terms in or der that special protection may be thrown about them during their homesteading season. There Is existing a colony of these birds close to the city of Chicago. Information of their whereabouts has been given to those interested in securing their protection, but the fear that annihilation of 10 WO 10 cd 1,1rr ly disclosing It's exact whereabouts must t be the accepted reason for not giving here the specific location.
 There are few sights in nature more beautiful than the view of a nesting col ony of black terms, as the old birds glide backward and forward, turning as lightly as swallows above their nests lying at the base of the bending flags. The person who called dancing the poetry of motion never saw the flight of this light winged bird of the marshland. The nest of the black tern Is curiosity. It frequently is placed in shallow water upon bed of floating rushes The bird literally rides upon a raft while keeping warm it's eggs.
 Terms Easily Slaughtered.
 The black tern has been in such de- mand for millinery purposes that a man with knowledge of the nesting place of a colony in his breast and with a shotgun In his hand has been able to make a months wages in days shooting There Is something absolutely conscienceless about the method of killing the terms The market hunter seeks out the nesting place, fiushes the birds from their nests and while they hover about his head, uttering cries of fear and of distress at the danger which they suppose threatens their nests, he shoots them down ruthlessly. The survivors seemingly do not understand what has happened to their murdered fel- lows and they continue to circle about the head of the intruder until the last one Is sacrificed on the altar of fashion
 This is a dark picture, but there is a lighter one. All along the Atlantic coast upon the islands where the herring gull, the Bonapartes, the kittiwakes (Rissa !ridactyla) and the other sea birds build, there are stationed this summer men who have the authority of the law to stop the hlaughter of the birds and to prevent the ttealing of their eggs. These men are ab- toluteIy fearless. They must needs be, Dor the class which preys upon the birds s irresponsible and often willing to com hit any crime rather than to have ended i. 1heir lucrative occupation of bird murder. E The Thayer fund. which is used for the Employment of wardens for the protec- 9hon of sea birds, is not large sum, but