The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1906-07-22

most extinct. It is certain that men
sometimes watch for periods ranging
from six to eight months before they
get shot at one. so they surely are
scarce. Yet the census of the worlds
fur market shows that each year al
most 500 sea otter skins are brought in.
and that means that twelve of these
rare animals are killed for every week
in the year.
1t was fashion that killed OF the
egret, FlOrida's beautiful white wader
All that women wanted of this glorious
creature, one of the most beautiful
birds that the world ever produced.
was the dainty plume that grew on the
male in the counting season. To get
that the birds were slain on their
roosts literally by the tens OF thou
sands, the plume torn from them and
the slender. mutilated bodies cast aside.
So frightful was the devastation that
an egret roost could be smelled many
miles away after the plume hunters
got into Florida. for the bodies of the
birds lay in mounds everywhere.
There are some egrets left yet: that
is. naturalist can find a few scattered
fiocks, and he thinks that they are big
Hfiocks, and that he is a lucky man in
deed if he sees half a hundred to-
gether. Yet in the memory of young
men the egretS once whitened miles of
their rOOsts in the evening they truly
hid the sun with their multitudes.
The true quagga has disappeared.
and only two skeletons and one skull
remain in a British museum to tell OF
a beast that covered South Africa's
plains in herds in the eighteenth cen
fury. and still formed a notable part
of the fauna in the nineteenth century.
Where has il gone? Killed off by the
European settlers, partly for sport. but
mostly for the purpose of getting hides
to make grain bags.
BurchelPs zebra, fast dying out but
still existent in some numbers near the
end of the nineteenth century, was pol
iShed off by the Boer war. After that
conflict ended the zebra was ended too
In 1880 they killed the last blue buck
in Africa splendid species of horse
antelope. Three skins and skeletons
of the black emu of Australia are all
that remain of those strange ostrich
like birds, and the common emu will
probably follow them soon and go
where the moa went long ago
The great golden mamo (depranis
pacifico), of whose golden feathers the
old kings and chiefs of Hawaii used to
make their precious clOaks and head
dresses, looked it's last on the sun in
the middle of the century just past.
The last Labrador duck was killed
dOOQl the same time.
very late in the day are the efforts
of all civilized governments to stop the
destruction Reservations to offer
refugees to the last of the wild ones are
being established not only in North
America and in Europe. but in Africa
and Asia Even the whale is to be pro-
tected- One government. that of Nor
way. has already established a closed
season, and there was need for it. since
100000 whales were killed along the
Norwegian coast in the last thirty
years.
And while governments are protect
ing animals and birds by individuals,
man is still devouring them by armies.
Ihus In the Italian town of Nizza the
four months record. last year, Of song
birds brought to market dead to be
eaten was: $4,000 thrushes. 5S1. 600
iarks and 100000 misceFaneous song
birds.