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 b.u.mped down steps both high and steep. In 1880 American women wore sealskin, marten, otter, beaver and mink. To-day nothing that wears hair is too humble to be skinned and worn. To-day "they are wearing" skins of muskrats, foxes, rabbits, skunks, domestic cats, squirrels, and even rats. And see how the taste for game,--of some sections of our population,--also has gone down.

In the North, the Italians are fighting for the privilege of eating everything that wears feathers; but we allow no birds to be shot for food save game birds and cranes. In the South, the negroes and poor whites are killing song-birds, woodp.e.c.k.e.rs and doves for food; and in several states some of it is done under the authority of the laws. Look at these awful lists:

IN THESE STATES, ROBINS ARE LEGALLY SHOT AND EATEN:

Louisiana North Carolina Tennessee Texas Mississippi South Carolina Maryland Florida

IN THESE STATES, BLACKBIRDS ARE LEGALLY SHOT AND EATEN:

Louisiana Pennsylvania Tennessee District of Columbia South Carolina

CRANES ARE SHOT AND EATEN IN THESE STATES:

Colorado North Dakota Nevada Oklahoma Nebraska

In Mississippi, the _cedar bird_ is legally shot and eaten! In North Carolina, the meadow lark is shot and eaten.

IN THE FOLLOWING STATES, DOVES ARE CONSIDERED "GAME," AND ARE SHOT IN AN "OPEN SEASON:"

Alabama Georgia Minnesota Ohio Arkansas Idaho Mississippi Oregon California Illinois Missouri Pennsylvania Connecticut Kentucky Nebraska South Carolina Delaware Louisiana New Mexico Tennessee Dist. of Columbia Maryland North Carolina Texas Utah Virginia

The killing of doves represents a great and widespread decline in the ethics of sportsmanship. In the twenty-six States named, a great many men who _call_ themselves sportsmen indulge in the cheap and ign.o.ble pastime of potting weak and confiding doves. It is on a par with the "sport" of hunting English sparrows in a city street. Of course this is, to a certain extent, a matter of taste; but there is at least one club of sportsmen into which no dove-killer can enter, provided his standard of ethics is known in advance.

With the killing of robins, larks, blackbirds and cedar birds for food, the case is quite different. No white man calling himself a sportsman ever indulges in such low pastimes as the killing of such birds for food. That burden of disgrace rests upon the negroes and poor whites of the South; but at the same time, it is a shame that respectable white men sitting in state legislatures should deliberately enact laws _permitting_ such disgraceful practices, or permit such disgraceful and ungentlemanly laws to remain in force!

Here is a case by way of ill.u.s.tration, copied very recently from the Atlanta _Journal_:

Editor _Journal_:--I located a robin roost up the Trinity River, six miles from Dallas, and prevailed on six Dallas sportsmen to go with me on a torch-light bird hunt. This style of hunting was, of course, new to the Texans, but they finally consented to go, and I had the pleasure of showing them how it was done.

Equipped with torch lights and shot guns, we proceeded. After reaching the hunting grounds the sport began in reality, and continued for two hours and ten minutes, with a total slaughter of 10,157 birds, an average of 1,451 birds killed by each man.

But the Texans give me credit for killing at least 2,000 of the entire number. I was called 'the king of bird hunters' by the sportsmen of Dallas, Texas, and have been invited to command-in-chief the next party of hunters which go from Dallas to the Indian Territory in search of large game.--F.L. CROW, Dallas, Texas, former Atlantan.

Dallas, Texas, papers and Oklahoma papers, please copy!

As a further ill.u.s.tration of the spirit manifested in the South toward robins, I quote the following story from Dr. P.P. Claxton, of the University of Tennessee, as related in Audubon Educational Leaflet No.

46, by Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson:--

"The roost to which I refer," says Professor Claxton, "was situated in what is locally known as a 'cedar glade,' near Porestville, Bedford Co., Tennessee. This is a great cedar country, and robins used to come in immense numbers during the winter months, to feed on the berries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ROBIN OF THE NORTH Our best-beloved Song Bird, now being legally shot as "game" in the South. In the North there is now only one robin for every ten formerly there.]

"The spot which the roost occupied was not unlike numerous others that might have been selected. The trees grew to a height of from five to thirty feet, and for a mile square were literally loaded at night with robins. Hunting them while they roosted was a favorite sport. A man would climb a cedar tree with a torch, while his companions with poles and clubs would disturb the sleeping birds on the adjacent trees.

Blinded by the light, the suddenly awakened birds flew to the torch-bearer; who, _as he seized each bird would quickly pull off its head_, and drop it into a sack suspended from his shoulders.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MOCKING-BIRD OF THE SOUTH This sweet singer of the South is NOT being shot in the North for food! No northern lawmaker ever will permit such barbarity.]

"The capture of three of four hundred birds was an ordinary night's work. Men and boys would come in wagons from all the adjoining counties and camp near the roost for the purpose of killing robins. Many times, 100 or more hunters with torches and clubs would be at work in a single night. _For three years_ this tremendous slaughter continued in winter,--and then the survivors deserted the roost."

[Ill.u.s.tration: NORTHERN ROBINS READY FOR SOUTHERN SLAUGHTER 195 Birds at Avery Island, La. in January 1912, Photographed Daring the Annual Slaughter, by E.A. McIlhenny]

No: these people were not Apache Indians, led by a Geronimo who knew no mercy, no compa.s.sion. We imagine that they were mostly poor white trash, of Tennessee. One small hamlet sent to market annually enough dead robins to return $500 at _five cents per dozen_; which means _120,000 birds_!

Last winter Mr. Edward A. McIlhenny of Avery Island, La. (south of New Iberia) informed me that every winter, during the two weeks that the holly berries are ripe thousands of robins come to his vicinity to feed upon them. "Then every negro man and boy who can raise a gun is after them. About 10,000 robins are slaughtered each day while they remain.

Their dead bodies are sold in New Iberia at 10 cents each." The accompanying ill.u.s.trations taken by Mr. McIlhenny shows 195 robins on one tree, and explains how such great slaughter is possible.

An officer of the Louisiana Audubon Society states that a conservative estimate of the number of robins annually killed in Louisiana for food purposes when they are usually plentiful, is a _quarter of a million_!

The food of the robin is as follows:

Insects, 40 per cent; wild fruit, 43 per cent; cultivated fruit, 8 per cent, miscellaneous vegetable food, 5 per cent.

SPECIAL WORK OF THE SOUTHERN NEGROES.--In 1912 a female colored servant who recently had arrived from country life in Virginia chanced to remark to me at our country home in the middle of August: "I wish I could find some birds' nests!"

"What for?" I asked, rather puzzled.

"Why, to get the aigs and _eat 'em!_" she responded with a bright smile and flashing teeth.

"Do you eat the eggs of _wild_ birds?"

"Yes indeed! It's _fine_ to get a pattridge nest! From them we nearly always git a whole dozen of aigs at once,--back where I live, in Virginia."

"Do the colored people of Virginia make a _practice_ of hunting for the eggs of wild birds, and eating them?"

"Yes, indeed we do. In the spring and summer, when the birds are around, we used to get out every Sunday, and hunt all day. Some days we'd come back with a whole bucket full of aigs; and then we'd set up half the night, cookin' and eatin' 'em. They was _awful_ good!"

Her face fairly beamed at the memory of it.

A few days later, this story of the doings of Virginia negroes was fully corroborated by a colored man who came from another section of that state. Three months later, after special inquiries made at my request, a gentleman of Richmond obtained further corroboration, from negroes. He was himself much surprised by the state of fact that was revealed to him.

In the North, the economic value of our song birds and other destroyers of insects and weed seeds is understood by a majority of the people, and as far as possible those birds are protected from all human enemies. But in the South, a new division of the Army of Destruction has risen into deadly prominence.