Show mm > ar I I Destruction of the Song Birds The former wealth of bird music infield in-field and grove here in Connecticut cannot can-not well he understood by those who have grown up since the destructive warfare war-fare on birds began I is a wonder intact in-tact not that so few but that any are left when we consider the variety of shapes in which disaster overtakes ou singing birds Not to mention the many thousands that are destroyed in the egg lor nest by marauding boys and specimen speci-men collectors the further destruction of the migrating birds by dashing their lives out against the lanterns of an endless end-less string of lighthouses along the coast for their journey is mostly performed at nightis far larger than is generally supposed sup-posed and would seem to be enough to decimate them I we add to this the ruthless wholesale slaughter of some species like the bobolink for example by gunners along the Delaware and rivers further south who devote the birds to stews and pies there need be no further looking for the cause of the marked diminution of this most rollicking rollick-ing and once very abundant songster or our May and June grassfields Yet the introduction of the mowing machine with the earlier grass cutting that has accompanied ac-companied it supplies additional explanation ex-planation of a part of the general disappearance He is not pearance of the bobolink found as a songster elsewhere than in these charming fields of our northland in I the perfect months of May and June and his peculiar rollicking tinkling swaggering melody was one of the charms of such scenes at that happiest time in the year Perhaps his extermination cannot be stopped but this wholesale destruction de-struction of all sorts of song birds including in-cluding our finest singer the brown thrasher and all just to supply feathered ornaments for womens hats is a little too bad I the women would be content with the European sparrow now unfortunately unfor-tunately naturalized in this country nobody no-body would offer a word of opposition Ii Hartford Times |