In 1897 when the Zoological Society published my report on the “Extermination of Our Birds and Mammals,” we put down the decrease in the volume of bird life in Massachusetts during the previous fifteen years at twenty-seven per cent.  The later and more elaborate investigations of Mr. Forbush have satisfactorily vindicated the accuracy of that estimate.

There are other North American birds that easily might be added to the list of those now on the road to oblivion; but surely the foregoing citations are sufficient to reveal the present desperate conditions of our bird life in general.  Now the question is:  What are the great American people going to do about it?

THE GRAY SQUIRREL.—­The gray squirrel is in danger of extermination.  Although it is our most beautiful and companionable small wild animal, and really unfit for food, Americans have strangely elected to class it as “game,” and shoot it to death, to eat!  And this in stall-fed America, in the twentieth century!  Americans are the only white people in the world who eat squirrels.  It would be just as reasonable, and no more barbarous, to kill domestic cats and eat them.  Their flesh would taste quite as good as squirrel flesh and some of them would afford quite as good “sport.”

Every intelligent person knows that in the United States the deadly shot-gun is rapidly exterminating every bird and every small mammal that is classed as “game,” and which legally may be killed, even during two months of the twelve.  The market gunners slaughter ducks, grouse, shore birds and rabbits as if we were all starving.

The beautiful gray squirrel has clung to life in a few of our forests and wood-lots, long after most other wild mammals have disappeared; but throughout at least ninety-five per cent, of its original area, it is now extinct.  During the past thirty years I have roamed the woods of my state in several widely separated localities,—­the Adirondacks, Catskills, Berkshires, western New York and elsewhere, and in all that time I have seen only three wild gray squirrels outside of city parks.

Except over a very small total area, the gray squirrel is already gone from the wild fauna of New York State!

Do the well-fed people of America wish to have this beautiful animal entirely exterminated?  Do they wish the woods to become wholly lifeless?  Or, do they desire to bring back some of the wild creatures, and keep them for their children to enjoy?

There is no wild mammal that responds to protection more quickly than the gray squirrel.  In two years’ time, wild specimens that are set free in city parks learn that they are safe from harm and become almost fearless.  They take food from the hands of visitors, and climb into their arms.  One of the most pleasing sights of the Zoological Park is the enjoyment of visitors, young and old, in “petting” our wild gray squirrels.

We ask the Boy Scouts of America to bring back this animal to each state where it belongs, by securing for it from legislatures and governors the perpetual closed seasons that it imperatively needs.  It is not much to ask.  This can be done by writing to members of the legislatures and requesting a suitable law.  Such a request will be both right and reasonable; and three states have already granted it.