Page 40 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

18 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
A failure to appreciate either the beauty or the value of our living birds, quadrupeds and fishes is the hall-mark of arrested mental develop- ment and ignorance. The victim is not always to blame; but in this prac- tical world the cornerstone of legal jurisprudence is the inexorable prin- ciple that "ignorance of the law excuses no man."
These pages are addressed to my countrymen, and the world at large, not as a reproach upon the dead Past which is gone beyond recall, but in the faint hope of somewhere and somehow arousing forces that willreformthePresentandsavetheFutiire. Theexterminationofwild species that now is proceeding throughout the world, is a dreadful thing. It is not only injurious to the economy of the world, but it is a shame and a disgrace to the civilized portion of the human race.
It is of little avail that I should here enter into a detailed description of each species that now is being railroaded into oblivion. The book- shelves of intelligent men and women are filled with beautiful and ade- quate books on birds and quadrupeds, wherein the status of each spe- cies may be determined, almost without effort. There is time and space only in which to notice the most prominent of the doomed species, and perhaps discuss a few examples by way of illustration. Here is a
Partial List of North American Birds Threatened with Early Extermination
Whooping Crane Trumpeter Swan American Flamingo Roseate Spoonbill Scarlet Ibis Long-Billed Curlew HUDSONIAN GODWIT Upland Plover Red-Breasted Sandpiper Golden Plover
DowiTCHER WiLLET
Pectoral Sandpiper Black-Capped Petrel American Egret Snowy Egret
Wood Duck Band-Tailed Pigeon HeATH HeN
Sage Grouse Prairie Sharp-Tail Pinnated Grouse White-Tailed Kite
The Whooping Crane.—This splendid bird will almost certainly bethenextNorthAmericanspeciestobetotallyexterminated. Itis the only new world rival of the numerous large and showy cranes of the old world; for the sandhill crane is not in the same class as the white, blackandbluegiantsofAsia. WewillpartfromourstatelyGrusameri- canus with profound sorrow, for on this continent we ne'er shall see his like again.
The well-nigh total disappearance of this species has been brought close home to us by the fact that there are less than half a dozen individ- uals alive in captivity, while in a wild state the bird is so rare as to be quiteunobtainable. Forexample,fornearlyfiveyearsanEnglishgen-