The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-07-16
By James P. Heaton, Exclusive Ser

r By James P Heaton, Exclusive Ser
 vice The Survey Press Bureau.)
 Signs on the small truck farms and wood lots near several of our great cities forbidding hunting on these premises are evidence of the slaught- ter of tiny .song birds for food by our newly arrived migrants from Southern Europe: Since nothing ex- cept crows larger than robins. black birds or thrushes, not even so much as an occasional rabbit, is ever to be found in the open fields where many of these warnings greet the passer-by, they seem ludicrous and ary "No Trespass'' notice. Twenty years ago the farmer would havA thought so too but trampled crops and fields and the Sunday banging of shot guns have proved this notion mistaken
 The Italian, the Greek and the Bull garian come from lands where it is even yetthe custom of rich and poor to eat song birds and their eggs. In their old home there are few statutes to protect bird life and in consequence they show little respect. for our game laws. They are skillful in evading these. The vicinity of an Italian construction camp in country districts is often marked by silence, feathers and sometimes the remains of deer carcasses whether in season or out.
 A simple method and the only one at first of these petty pot hunters is to set forth with plain shotgun and fire away at the birds keeping an eye cense laws imposing high license charges for hunters or game wardens make this too risky they hunt in small groups The men who carry the guns never have the game. A havorite arm now is the Sunday gum specially devised for clandestine hunting. It-has a short rife barrel and also a. shot gun barrel This type of gun is small enough to be hidden under an ordinary jacket. The pos sessor of one of these weapons can bring down a deer as we'll as get a bag of birds. The. Maxim silencer fortunately has not been used on shot guns for general sale or it would be next to impossible to catch small bird hunters.
 In some states song birds are in most quarters so we'll safeguarded that they have become .urwary and It lis easy for hunters to shoot large es, bIuebirds, sparrows, thrushes and warblers. An Italian arrested In Connecticut had concealed about him twelve robins, three blue-jays, three f1ickers, two hermit thrushes, and a purple finch. This hunter had no gun. If the gun bearer for whom he was carrying the game had been caught and searched he would prima facie have been innocent of having shot anything. 4 In another state the heads of a hundred robin were found where Polish hunters had dressed their bag and in yet another a game war den caught. an Italian with forty birds, 1w% SRtP
 Not content to get their bags through at least a modicum of per- sonal skill under circumstances calcu- lated to give the birds "a, -little warn ing, some Of ourN future citizens resort to the use of the prescribed snare. The loops placed on the ground and baited for such birds as chewink, thrllshes. thrashes, fox sparroWs, eat-birds and other &songsters that scratch among the, leaves for grub. Others hang these snares along the limbs of apple trees to catch robins.
 That our game laws should be thus defied by a portion of tle growing throng of immigrants most of whom are law abiding, is not surprising Shooting, filming, snaring and Detting song birds have been practiced in Southern Europe from times innme- morial and old established habits are
 
 even yet the custom in places to go to the woods with. a little owl fast on a porch on top, of pole which Is placed by a thicket Small birds come to tease the owl and are shot, their places being taken by others.
 Several reasons combine, to make the Italian at home unnindful of wholesale destruction of bird life. Northern Europe is a great summer nesting ground for song birds. Italy and Sicily stretching half way across the Mediterranean from Europe col Iect the southern migration in the falls and catch it again the following spring. Italy, therefore, has for short seasons at least. three times as many birds as the other countries of south ern Europe The number is so great that but few, though the number is every year. more, see any need for protection Those killed are not miss ed Tn France where it was the GUS tom to gather the eggs of song birds for food as well as to shoot them a failure of the crops. followed because of the increase of insects. The multi plying of crop destroying insects was admitted to be the direct result of the slaughter of song birds. In It. a1y the crops are safe because of the great. increase in number of small liz ards which also feed on insects. These infest almost every square yard of ground outside the towns.
 To counteraet old world customs we need not gonly more game wardens and a sharper eyed, public. but cam paign of education directed at these most likely. to break the laws: A start has been made Yin some states by publishing the game laws in foreign languages. This is not enough. Cop ies of the laws printed in Italian have