.

[Illustration: Window "Cafeteria," at home of Mrs. Granville Pike,
North Yakima, Washington. The birds here seen at their lunch are the
Goldfinch, Housefinch, and Oregon Junco.]

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker, the largest member of the Woodpecker
family found in the United States, is now nearly extinct. There are
some in the wilder regions of Florida, and a few in the swamps of upper
Louisiana, but nowhere does the bird exist in numbers. It has been
thought by some naturalists that the reduction of the forest areas was
responsible for this bird's disappearance, but it is hard to believe
that this fact alone was sufficient to affect them so seriously, for
the birds live mainly in swamps, and in our Southern States there are
extensive lowland regions that remain practically untouched by the
axeman. For some reason, however, the birds have been unable to
withstand the advance of civilization, and like the Paroquet, the
disappearance of which is almost equally difficult to explain, it will
soon be numbered with the lengthening list of species that have passed
away.

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The Commercializing of Birds.--With the exceptions noted above the
birds that have noticeably decreased in numbers in North America are
those on whose heads a price has been set by the markets. Let a demand
once arise for the bodies or the feathers of a species, and immediately
a war is begun upon it that, unless speedily checked, spells disaster
for the unfortunate bird.

_The Labrador Duck and Others._--A hundred years ago the Labrador Duck,
known to Audubon as the "Pied Duck," was abundant in the waters of the
North Atlantic, and it was hunted and shot regularly in fall, winter,
and spring, along the coast of New England and New York. Their
breeding grounds were chiefly on the islands and along the shores of
Labrador, as well as on the islands and mainland about the Gulf of St.
Lawrence. Any one over forty years of age will remember how very
popular feather beds used to be. In fact, there are those of us who
know from experience that in many rural sections the deep feather bed
is still regarded as the _piece de {131} resistance_ of the careful
householder's equipment. There was a time when the domestic poultry of
New England did not furnish as great a supply of feathers as was
desired. Furthermore, "Eider down" was recognized as the most
desirable of all feathers for certain domestic uses.

A hundred and fifty years ago New England s