Page 116 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

CHAPTER XI
SLAUGHTER OF SONG-BIRDS BY ITALIANS
In these days of wild-life slaughter, we hear much of death and de- struction. Beforeoureyestherecontinuallyarisephotographsofhang- ing masses of waterfowl, grouse, pheasants, deer and fish, usually sup- ported in true heraldic fashion by the men who slew them and the im- plements of slaughter. The world has become somewhat hardened to these things, because the victims are classed as game; and in the de- struction of game, one game-bag more or less "Will not count in the news of the battle."
The slaughter of song, insectivorous and all other birds by Italians and other aliens from southern Europe has become a scourge to the bird lifeofthiscountry. Thedevilishworkofthenegroesandpoorwhites oftheSouthwillbeconsideredinthenextchapter. InItaly,linnetsand sparrows are "game"; and so is everything else that wears feathers! Italy is a continuous slaughtering-ground for the migratory birds of Europe,andassuchitisaninternationalnuisanceandapest. Theway passerine birds are killed and eaten in that country is a disgrace to the governmentofItaly,andastandingreproachtothethrone. Evenkings and parliaments have no right in moral or international law to permit year after year the wholesale slaughter of birds of passage of species that no civilized man has a right to kill.
There are some tales of slaughter from which every properly-balanced Christianmindisboundtorecoilwithhorror. Onesuchtalehasrecently been given to us in the pages of the Avicultural Magazine, of London, for January, 1912, by Mr. Hubert D. Astley, F. Z. S., whose word no manwilldispute. Incondensingit,letuscallit
'The Italian Slaughter of the Innocents
Thisstorydoesnotconcerngamebirdsofanykind. Quitethecon- trary. That it should be published in America, a land now rapidly fill- ing up with Italians, is a painful necessity in order that the people of America may be enabled accurately to measure the fatherland traditions and the fixed mental attitude of Italians generally toward our song birds. I shall now hold a mirror up to Italian nature. If the image is either hideous or grotesque, the fault will not be mine. I specially commend the picture to the notice of American game wardens and judges on the bench.
The American reader must be reminded that the Italian peninsula reaches out a long arm of land into the Mediterranean Sea for several