Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/318

286 work, and the women and children might be employed in more remunerative labour. In the streets of Bordeaux, during the autumn and winter, Thrashes and Starlings are offered for sale by thousands, and yet these birds' live exclusively on insects.' It is not surprising to learn that a Bill is shortly to be introduced into the Chamber for the protection of birds 'useful to agriculture.'"—Westminster Gazette.

is evident that the crusade against murderous millinery needs to be renewed, and that in quarters where one would have supposed it to be least necessary. A lady communicates to the 'Christian World' the startling fact that at the May meetings she has noticed Ospreys everywhere, even on the platform. At one important ladies' missionary meeting, both the lady who presided and a missionary who described the cruelties of Indian life wore Ospreys. She supposes they have been told that their plumes were imitation, but adds that in nineteen cases out of twenty they were real.

In 'Popular Science News' (New York), Mr. John Mortimer Murphy has contributed a most interesting article on the Alligator. We read that M the Alligator is rapidly disappearing in the settled regions of Florida, and becoming scarcer every day even in such remote regions as the Everglades, owing to the war of extermination waged against it by hide-hunters, taxidermists, and dealers in curiosities. These pursue it night and day, year in and year out. The little fingerlings just out of the nest are in great demand, as they are worth from two to three dollars per hundred in the local markets. The 'curio' dealers who purchase them often resell them at a dollar each to northern visitors, or else they kill and stuff them into card-plates, cigar-holders, or whatever else their fancy suggests, and dispose of them at good prices. The young are frequently lured from their lurking-places by a poor imitation of the grunts of their mother, and men expert in mimicking her may capture a large number in a day, as they respond promptly to the calls, and pour out of cavities in hot haste to see the caller. The most expert 'gator callers' I ever knew were swamp rangers, both white and black, who were born and bred within a short distance of an Alligator swamp, and therefore knew every intonation of the saurian 's voice. These men could make a matron charge wildly at them across a broad stream by imitating the frightened cries of her young, or lure a decrepit old bull by mimicking the grunts of the female. They could, in fact, delude both old and young, and often earned good sums by their art."