New York City, by game wardens of the New York Zoological Society.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER XII


DESTRUCTION OF SONG BIRDS BY SOUTHERN NEGROES AND POOR WHITES

Before going farther, there is one point that I wish to make quite
clear.

Whenever the people of a particular race make a specialty of some
particular type of wrong-doing, anyone who pointedly rebukes the faulty
members of that race is immediately accused of "race prejudice." On
account of the facts I am now setting forth about the doings of Italian
and negro bird-killers, I expect to be accused along that line. If I am,
I shall strenuously deny the charge. The facts speak for themselves.
Zoologically, however, I am strongly prejudiced against the people of
any race, creed, club, state or nation who make a specialty of any
particularly offensive type of bird or wild animal slaughter; and I do
not care who knows it.

The time was, and I remember it very well, when even the poorest gunner
scorned to kill birds that were not considered "game." In days lang
syne, many a zoological collector has been jeered because the specimens
he had killed for preservation were not "game."

But times have changed. In the wearing of furs, we have bumped down
steps both high and steep. In 1880 American women wore sealskin, marten,