Page 99 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

UNSEEN FOES OF WILD LIFE
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birds, and especially of upland game birds, by roaming dogs, has in some localities become a great curse to bird life. Complaints of this kind have come from New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and else- where. Usuallytheculpritsarehuntingdogs—setters,pointersandhounds.
Now, surely it is not necessary to set forth here any argument on thissubject. Itisnotopentoargument,oracademictreatmentofany kind. Thecoldfactis:
In the breeding season of birds, and while the young birds are in- capable of quick and strong flight, all dogs, of every description, should be restrained from free hunting ; and all dogs found hunting in the woods during the season referred to should be arrested, and their owners should be fined twenty dollars for each offense. Incidentally, one-half the fine shouldgotothecitizenwhoarreststhedog. Themethodofrestraining hunting dogs should devolve upon dog owners ; and the law need only prohibit or punish the act.
Beyond a doubt, in states that still possess quail and ruffed grouse, free hunting by hunting dogs leads to great destruction of nests and broods during the breeding season.
Telegraph and Telephone Wires.—Mr. Daniel C. Beard has strongly called my attention to the slaughter of birds by telegraph wiresthathascomeunderhispersonalobservation. Hiscountryhome, at Redding, Connecticut, is near the main line of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railway, along which a line of very large poles carries a great number of wires. The wires are so numerous that they form a barrier through which it is difficult for any bird to fly and come out alive and unhurt.
Mr. Beard says that among the birds killed or crippled by flying against those wires near Redding he has seen the following species : olive- backed thrush, white-throated sparrow and other sparrows, oriole, blue jay, rail, ruffed grouse, and woodcock. It is a common practice for employees of the railwa3% and others living along the line, to follow the line and pick up on one excursion enough birds for a pot-pie.
Beyond question, the telegraph and telephone wires of the United States annually exact a heavy toll in bird life, and claim countless thou- sands of victims. They may well be set down as one of the un.seen forces destructive to birds.
Naturally, we ask, what can be done about it?
I am told that in Scotland such slaughter is prevented by the attachment of small tags or discs to the telephone wires, at intervals of a few rods, sufficiently near that they attract the attention of flying birds, and reveal the line of an obstruction This system should be adopted in all regions where the conditions are such that birds kill them- selves against telegraph wires, and an excellent place to begin would be along the line of the N. Y., N. H. & H. Railway.^,
Wild Animals.—Beyond question, it is both desirable and necessary that any excess of wild animals that prey upon our grouse, quail, pheas-