ornamentation. Think of a
woman or girl of real refinement appearing upon the street with her head
gear adorned with the scalps of our songsters!

It is probably true that the number of our birds destroyed by man is but
a small percentage of the number cut off by their natural enemies; but
it is to be remembered that those he destroys are in addition to those
thus cut off, and that it is this extra or artificial destruction that
disturbs the balance of nature. The operation of natural causes keeps
the birds in check, but the greed of the collectors and milliners tends
to their extinction.

I can pardon a man who wishes to make a collection of eggs and birds
for his own private use, if he will content himself with one or two
specimens of a kind, though he will find any collection much less
satisfactory and less valuable than he imagines, but the professional
nest-robber and skin collector should be put down, either by legislation
or with dogs and shotguns.

I have remarked above that there is probably very little truth in
the popular notion that snakes can "charm" birds. But two of my
correspondents have each furnished me with an incident from his own
experience, which seems to confirm the popular belief. One of them
writes from Georgia as follows:--

"Some twenty-eight years ago I was in Calaveras County, California,
engaged in cutting lumber. One day in coming out of the camp or cabin,
my attention was attracted to the curious action of a quail in the air,
which, instead of flying low and straight ahead as usual, was some fifty
feet high, flying in a circle, and uttering cries of distress. I watched
the bird and saw it gradually descend, and following with my eye in a
line from the bird to the ground saw a large snake with head erect and
some ten or twelve inches above the ground, and mouth wide open, and
as far as I could see, gazing intently on the quail (I was about thirty
feet from the snake). The quail gradually descended, its circles growing
smaller and smaller and all the time uttering cries of distress, until
its feet were within two or three inches of the mouth of the snake; when
I threw a stone, and though not hitting the snake, yet struck the ground
so near as to frighten him, and he gradually started off. The quail,
however, fell to the ground, apparently lifeless. I went forward and
picked it up and found it was thoroughly overcome with fright, its
little heart beating as if it would burst through the