CHAPTER XISLAUGHTER OF SONG-BIRDS BY ITALIANS
CHAPTER XI
SLAUGHTER OF SONG-BIRDS BY ITALIANS
In these days of wild-life slaughter, we hear much of death and destruction. Before our eyes there continually arise photographs of hanging masses of waterfowl, grouse, pheasants, deer and fish, usually supported in true heraldic fashion by the men who slew them and the implements of slaughter. The world has become somewhat hardened to these things, because the victims are classed as game; and in the destruction of game, one game-bag more or less "Will not count in the news of the battle."
The slaughter of song, insectivorous and all other birds by Italians and other aliens from southern Europe has become a scourge to the bird life of this country. The devilish work of the negroes and poor whites of the South will be considered in the next chapter. In Italy, linnets and sparrows are "game"; and so is everything else that wears feathers! Italy is a continuous slaughtering-ground for the migratory birds of Europe, and as such it is an international nuisance and a pest. The way passerine birds are killed and eaten in that country is a disgrace to the government of Italy, and a standing reproach to the throne. Even kings and parliaments have no right in moral or international law to permit year after year the wholesale slaughter of birds of passage of species that no civilized man has a right to kill.
There are some tales of slaughter from which every properly-balanced Christian mind is bound to recoil with horror. One such tale has recently been given to us in the pages of theAvicultural Magazine, of London, for January, 1912, by Mr. Hubert D. Astley, F.Z.S., whose word no man will dispute. In condensing it, let us call it
The Italian Slaughter Of The Innocents
This story does not concern game birds of any kind. Quite the contrary. That it should be published in America, a land now rapidly filling up with Italians, is a painful necessity in order that the people of America may be enabled accurately to measure the fatherland traditions and the fixed mental attitude of Italians generally toward our song birds. I shall now hold a mirror up to Italian nature. If the image is either hideous or grotesque, the fault will not be mine. I specially commend the picture to the notice of American game wardens and judges on the bench.
The American reader must be reminded that the Italian peninsula reaches out a long arm of land into the Mediterranean Sea for several hundred miles toward the sunny Barbary coast of North Africa. This great southward highway has been chosen by the birds of central Europe as their favorite migration route. Especially is this true of the small song-birds with weak wings and a minimum of power for long-sustained flight. Naturally, they follow the peninsula down to the Italian Land's End before they launch forth to dare the passage of the Mediterranean.
AN ITALIAN ROCCOLO, ON LAKE COMO
A Death-Trap for Song-Birds. From the Avicultural Magazine
Italy is the narrow end of a great continental funnel, into the wide northern end of which Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland annually pour their volume of migratory bird life. And what is the result? For answer let us take the testimony of two reliable witnesses, and file it for use on the day when Tony Macchewin, gun in hand and pockets bulging with cartridges, goes afield in our country and opens fire on our birds.
The linnet is one of the sweet singers of Europe. It is a small, delicately formed, weak-winged little bird, about the size of our phoebe-bird. It weighs only a trifle more than a girl's love-letter. Where it breeds and rears its young, in Germany for example, a true sportsman would no more think of shooting a linnet than he would of killing and eating his daughter's dearest canary.
To the migrating bird, the approach to northern Italy, either going or returning, is not through a land of plenty. The sheltering forests have mostly been swept away, and safe shelters for small birds are very rare. In the open, there are owls and hawks; and the only refuge from either is the thick-leafed grove, into which linnets and pipits can dive at the approach of danger and quickly hide.
A linnet from the North after days of dangerous travel finally reached Lake Como, southward bound. The country was much too open for safety, and its first impulse was to look about for safe shelter. The low bushes that sparsely covered the steep hillsides were too thin for refuge in times of sudden danger.
Ah! Upon a hilltop is a little grove of trees, green and inviting. In the grove a bird is calling, calling, insistently. The trees are very small; but they seem to stand thickly together, and their foliage should afford a haven from both hawk and gunner. To it joyously flits the tired linnet. As it perches aloft upon a convenient whip-like wand, it notices for the first time a queer, square brick tower of small dimensions, rising in the center of a court-yard surrounded by trees. The tower is like an old and dingy turret that has been shorn from a castle, and set on the hilltop without apparent reason. It is two stories in height, with one window, dingy and uninviting. A door opens into its base.
Several birds that seem very near, but are invisible, frequently call and chirp, as if seeking answering calls and companionship. Surely the grove must be a safe place for birds, or they would not be here.
Hark! A whirring, whistling sound fills the air, like the air tone of a flying hawk's wings. A hawk! A hawk!
Down plunges the scared linnet, blindly, frantically, into the space sheltered by the grove!
Horrors! What is this?
Threads! Invisible, interlacing threads; tangled and full of pockets, treacherously spanning the open space. It is a fowler's net! The linnet is entangled. It flutters frantically but helplessly, and hangs there, caught. Its alarm cry is frantically answered by the two strange, invisible bird voices that come from the top of the tower!
The grove and the tower are A ROCCOLO! A huge, permanent, merciless, deadlytrap, for the wholesale capture of songbirds! The tower is the hiding place of the fowler, and the calling birds are decoy birds whose eyes have been totally blinded by red-hot wires in order that they will call more frantically than birds with eyes would do. The whistling wings that seemed a hawk were a sham, made by a racquet thrown through the air by the fowler, through a slot in his tower. He keeps by him many such racquets.
The door of the tower opens, and out comes the fowler. He is lowbrowed, swarthy, ill kept, and wears rings in his ears. A soiled hand seizes the struggling linnet, and drags it violently from the threads that entangled it. A sharp-pointed twig is thrust straight through the head of the helpless victimat the eyes, and after one wild, fluttering agony—it is dead.
The fowler sighs contentedly, re-enters his dirty and foul-smelling tower, tosses the feathered atom upon the pile of dead birds that lies upon the dirty floor in a dirty corner,—and is ready for the next one.
Ask him, as did Mr. Astley, and he will tell you frankly that there are about 150 dead birds in the pile,—starlings, sparrows, linnets, greenfinches, chaffinches, goldfinches, hawfinches, redstarts, blackcaps, robins, song thrushes, blackbirds, blue and coal tits, fieldfares and redwings. He will tell you also, that there areseven other roccolos within sight and twelve within easy walking distance. He will tell you, as he did Mr. Astley, that during that week he had taken about 500 birds, and that that number was a fair average for each of the 12 other roccolos.
This means the destruction of about 5,000 songbirds per weekin that neighborhood alone!Another keeper of a roccolo told Mr. Astley that during the previous autumn he took about 10,000 birds at his small and comparatively insignificant roccolo.
And above that awful roccolo of slaughtered innocents rosea wooden cross, in memory of Christ, the Merciful, the Compassionate!
Around the interior of the entwined sapling tops that formed the fatal bower of death there hung a semicircle of tiny cages containing live decoys,—chaffinches, hawfinches, titmice and several other species. "The older and staider ones call repeatedly," says Mr. Astley, "and the chaffinches break into song. It is the only song to be heard in Italy at the time of the autum migration."
And the King of Italy, the Queen of Italy, the Parliament of Italy and His Holiness the Pope permit these things, year in and year out. It is now said, however, that through the efforts of a recently organizedbird-lovers' society in Italy, the blinding of decoy birds for roccolos is to be stopped.
In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, the protection of these birds during their breeding season must be very effective, for otherwise the supply for the Italian slaughter of the Innocents would long ago have fallen to nothing.
The Germans love birds, and all wild life. I wonder how they like the Italian roccolo. I wonder how France regards it; and whether the nations of Europe north of Italy will endure this situation forever.
To the American and English reader, comment on the practices recorded above is quite unnecessary, except the observation that they betoken a callousness of feeling and a depth of cruelty and destructiveness to which, so far as known, no savages ever yet have sunk. As an exhibit of the groveling pusillanimity of the human soul, the roccolo of northern Italy reveals minus qualities which can not be expressed either in words or in figures.
And what is the final exhibit of the gallant knight of the roccolo, the feudal lord of the modern castle and its retainers?
The answer is given by Dr. Louis B. Bishop, in an article on "Birds in the Markets of Southern Europe."
In Venice, which was visited in October and November, during the fall migration, he found on sale in the markets, as food, thousands of songbirds.
"Birds were there in profusion, from ducks to kites, in the early morning, hung in great bunches above the stalls, but by 9 A.M. most of them had been sold. Ducks and shorebirds occurred in some numbers, but the vast majority were small sparrows, larks and thrushes. These were there during my visit by the thousands, if not ten thousands. To the market they were brought in large sacks, strung in fours on twigs which had been passed through the eyes and then tied. Most of these small birds had been trapped, and on skinning them I often could find no injury except at their eyes.[C]One of these sacks which I examined on November 3, contained hundreds of birds, largely siskins, skylarks and bramblings. As a rule the small birds that were not sold in the early morning were skinned or picked, and their tiny bodies packed in regular order, breasts up, in shadow tin boxes, and exposed for sale."
"During these visits to the Venetian markets, I identified 60 species, and procured specimens of most. As nearly as I can remember, small birds cost from two to five cents apiece. For example I paid $2.15 on Nov. 8, for
"On November 10, I paid $3.25 for
Of course there were various species of upland game birds, shore-birds and waterfowl,—everything, in fact, that could be found and killed. In addition to the passerine birds listed above. Dr. Bishop noted the following, all in Venice alone:
"In Florence," says Dr. Bishop, "I visited the central market on November 26, 28, 29, 30, December 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, and found birds even more plentiful than in Venice." Besides a variety of game birds, he found quantities of the species mentioned above, seen in Venice, and also the following:
"Here, too [at Florence] we saw often, bunches and baskets of small birds, chiefly redbreasts, hawked through the streets.... Every Sunday that we went into the country we met numbers of Italians out shooting, and their bags seemed to consist wholly of small birds.
"At Genoa, San Remo, Monte Carlo and Nice, between December 13 and 29, I did not visit the central markets, if such exist, but saw frequently bunches of small birds hanging outside stores.... A gentleman who spent the fall on an automobile trip through the west of FRANCEfrom Brittany to the Pyrenees, tells me he noticed these bunches of small birds on sale in every town he visited.
"That killing song-birds for food," continues Dr. Bishop, "is not confined to the poor Italians I learned on October 27, when one of the most prominent and wealthy Italianornithologists—a delightful man—told me he had shot 180 skylarks and pipits the day before, and that his family liked them far better than other game. Our prejudice against selling game does not exist in Europe, and this same ornithologist told me he often shot 200 ducks in a day at his shooting-box, sending to the market what he could not use himself. On November 1, 1910, he shot 82 ducks, and on November 8, 103, chiefly widgeon and teal."
An "ornithologist" indeed! A "sportsman" also, is he not? He belongs with his brother "ornithologists" of the roccolos, who net their "game" with the aid ofblindbirds! Brave men, gallant "sportsmen," are these men of Italy,—and western France also if the tale is true!
If the people of Europe can stand the wholesale, systematic slaughter of their song and insectivorous birds,we can! If they are too mean-spirited to rise up, make a row about it, and stop it, then let them pay the price; but, by the Eternal, Antonio shall not come to this country with the song-bird tastes of the roccolo and indulge them here!
The above facts have been cited, not at all for the benefit of Europe, but for our own good. The American People are now confronted by the Italian and Austrian and Hungarian laborer and saloon-keeper and mechanic, and all Americans should have an exact measure of the sentiments of southern Europe toward our wild life generally, especially the birds that we do not shoot at all,and therefore are easy to kill.
When a warden or a citizen arrests an alien for killing any of our non-game birds, show the judge these records of how they do things in Italy, and ask for the extreme penalty.
I have taken pains to publish the above facts from eye-witnesses in order that every game commissioner, game warden and state legislator who reads these pages may know exactly what he is "up against" in the alien population of our country from southern Europe. For unnumbered generations, the people of Italy have been taught to believe that it isperfectly rightto shoot and devour every song-bird that flies. The Venetian is no respecter of species; and when an Italian "ornithologist" (!) can go out and murder 180 linnets and pipits in one day for the pot, it is time for Americans to think hard.
We sincerely hope that it will not require blows and kicks and fines to remove from Antonio's head the idea that America is not Italy, and that the slaughter of song birds "don't go" in this country. I strongly recommend to every state the enactment of a law that will do these things:
From reports that have come to me at first hand regarding Italians in the East, Hungarians in Pennsylvania and Austrians in Minnesota, it seems absolutely certain that all members of the lower classes of southern Europe are a dangerous menace to our wild life.
On account of the now-accursed land-of-liberty idea, every foreigner who sails past the statue on Bedloe's Island and lands on our liberty-ridden shore, is firmly convinced thatnow, at last, he can do as he pleases! And as one of his first ways in which to show his newly-acquired personal liberty and independence in the Land of Easy Marks, he buys a gun and goes out to shoot "free game!"
If we, as a people, are so indolent and so somnolent that Antonio gets away with all our wild birds, then do we deserve to be robbed.
Italians are pouring into America in a steady stream. They are strong, prolific, persistent and of tireless energy. New York City now contains 340,000 of them. They work while the native Americans sleep. Wherever they settle, their tendency is to root out the native American and take his place and his income. Toward wild life the Italian laborer is a human mongoose. Give him power to act, and he will quickly exterminate every wild thing that wears feathers or hair. To our songbirds he is literally a "pestilence that walketh at noonday".
As we have shown, the Italian is a born pot-hunter, and he has grown up in the fixed belief that killing song-birds for food is right! To him all is game that goes into the bag. The moment he sets foot in the open, he provides himself with a shot-gun, and he looks about for things to kill. It is "a free country;" therefore, he may kill anything he can find, cook it and eat it. If anybody attempts to check him,—sapristi! beware his gun! He cheerfully invades your fields, and even your lawn; and he shoots robins, bluebirds, thrushes, catbirds, grosbeaks, tanagers, orioles, woodpeckers, quail, snipe, ducks, crows, and herons.
Down in Virginia, near Charlottesville, an Italian who was working on a new railroad once killed a turkey buzzard; and he selfishly cooked it and ate it, all alone. A pot-hunting compatriot of his heard of it, and reproached him for having-dined on game in camera. In the quarrel that ensued, one of the "sportsmen" stabbed the other to death.
When the New York Zoological Society began work on its Park in 1899, the northern half of the Borough of the Bronx was a regular daily hunting-ground for the slaughter of song-birds, and all other birds that could be found. Every Sunday it was "bangetty!" "bang!" from Pelham Bay to Van Cortlandt. The police force paid not the slightest attention to these open, flagrant, shameless violations of the city ordinances and the state bird laws. In those days I never but once heard of a policemanon his own initiativearresting a birdshooter, even on Sunday; but whenever meddlesome special wardens from the Zoological Park have pointedly called upon the local police force for help, it has always been given with cheerful alacrity. In the fall of 1912 an appeal to the Police Commissioner resulted in a general order to stop all hunting and shooting in the Borough of the Bronx, and a reform is now on.
The war on the bird-killers in New York City began in 1900. It seemed that if the Zoological Society did not take up the matter, the slaughter would continue indefinitely. The white man's burden was taken up; andthe story of the war is rather illuminating. Mr. G.O. Shields, President of the League of American Sportsmen, quickly became interested in the matter, and entered actively into the campaign. For months unnumbered, he spent every Sunday patroling the woods and thickets of northern New York and Westchester county, usually accompanied by John J. Rose and Rudolph Bell of the Zoological Park force, for whom appointments as deputy game wardens had been secured from the State.
The adventures of that redoubtable trio of man-hunters would make an interesting chapter. They were shot at by poachers, but more frequently they shot at the other fellows. Just why it was that no one was killed, no one seems to know. Many Italians and several Americans were arrested while hunting, haled to court, prosecuted and fined. Finally, a reign of terror set in; and that was the beginning of the end. It became known that those three men could not be stopped by threats, and that they always got their man—unless he got into a human rabbit-warren of the Italian boarding-house species. That was the only escape that was possible.
The largest haul of dead birds was 43 robins, orioles, thrushes and woodpeckers, captured along with the five Italians who committed the indiscretion of sitting down in the woods to divide their dead birds. We saved all the birds in alcohol, and showed them in court. The judge fined two of the Italians $50 each, and the other three were sent to the penitentiary for two months each.
Even yet, however, at long intervals an occasional son of sunny Italy tries his luck at Sunday bird shooting; but if anyone yells at him to "Halt!" he throws away his gun and stampedes through the brush like a frightened deer. The birds of upper New York are now fairly secure; but it has taken ten years of fighting to bring it about.
Throughout New York State, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and even Minnesota, wherever there are large settlements of Italians and Hungarians, the reports are the same. They swarm through the country every Sunday, and shoot every wild thing they see. Wherever there are large construction works,—railroads, canals or aqueducts,—look for bird slaughter, and you are sure to find it. The exception to this rule, so far as I know, is along the line of the new Catskill aqueduct, coming to New York City. The contractors have elected not to permit bird slaughter, and the rule has been made that any man who goes out hunting will instantly be discharged. That is the best rule that ever was made for the protection of birds and game against gang-working aliens.
Let every state and province in America look out sharply for the bird-killing foreigner; for sooner or later, he will surely attack your wild life. The Italians are spreading, spreading, spreading. If you are without them to-day, to-morrow they will be around you. Meet them at the threshold with drastic laws, throughly enforced; for no half way measures will answer.
Pennsylvania has had the worst experience of alien slaughterers of any state, thus far.Sixof her game wardens have beenkilled, and eight or ten have been wounded, by shooting! Finally her legislature arose in wrath, and passed a law prohibiting the ownership or possession of guns of any kind by aliens. The law gives the right of domiciliary search, and it surely is enforced. Of course the foreign population "kicked" against the law, but the People's steam roller went over them just the same. In New York, we require from an alien a license costing $20, and it has saved a million (perhaps) of our birds; but the Pennsylvania law is the best. It may be taken as a model for every state and province in America. Its text is as follows:
Section I. Be it enacted, &c., That from and after the passage of this act, it shall be unlawful for any unnaturalized foreign-born resident to hunt for or capture or kill, in this Commonwealth, any wild bird or animal, either game or otherwise, of any description, excepting in defense of person or property; and to that end it shall be unlawful for any unnaturalized foreign-born resident, within this Commonwealth, to either own or be possessed of a shotgun or rifle of any make. Each and every person violating any provision of this section shall, upon conviction thereof, be sentenced to pay a penalty of twenty-five dollars for each offense, or undergo imprisonment in the common jail of the county for the period of one day for each dollar of penalty imposed. Provided, That in addition to the before-named penalty, all guns of the before-mentioned kinds found in possession or under control of an unnaturalized foreign-born resident shall, upon conviction of such person, or upon his signing a declaration of guilt as prescribed by this act, be declared forfeited to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and shall be sold by the Board of Game Commissioners as hereinafter directed.Section 2. For the purpose of this act, any unnaturalized foreign-born person who shall reside or live within the boundaries of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for ten consecutive days shall be considered a resident and shall be liable to the penalties imposed for violation of the provisions of this act.Section 3. That the possession of a shotgun or rifle at any place outside of a building, within this Commonwealth, by an unnaturalized foreign-born resident, shall be conclusive proof of a violation of the provisions of section one of this act, and shall render any person convicted thereof liable to the penalty as fixed by said section.Section 4. That the presence of a shotgun or rifle in a room or house, or building or tent, or camp of any description, within this Commonwealth, occupied by or controlled by an unnaturalized foreign-born resident shall be prima facie evidence that such gun is owned or controlled by the person occupying or controlling the property in which such gun is found, and shall render such person liable to the penalty imposed by section one of this act.
Section I. Be it enacted, &c., That from and after the passage of this act, it shall be unlawful for any unnaturalized foreign-born resident to hunt for or capture or kill, in this Commonwealth, any wild bird or animal, either game or otherwise, of any description, excepting in defense of person or property; and to that end it shall be unlawful for any unnaturalized foreign-born resident, within this Commonwealth, to either own or be possessed of a shotgun or rifle of any make. Each and every person violating any provision of this section shall, upon conviction thereof, be sentenced to pay a penalty of twenty-five dollars for each offense, or undergo imprisonment in the common jail of the county for the period of one day for each dollar of penalty imposed. Provided, That in addition to the before-named penalty, all guns of the before-mentioned kinds found in possession or under control of an unnaturalized foreign-born resident shall, upon conviction of such person, or upon his signing a declaration of guilt as prescribed by this act, be declared forfeited to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and shall be sold by the Board of Game Commissioners as hereinafter directed.
Section 2. For the purpose of this act, any unnaturalized foreign-born person who shall reside or live within the boundaries of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for ten consecutive days shall be considered a resident and shall be liable to the penalties imposed for violation of the provisions of this act.
Section 3. That the possession of a shotgun or rifle at any place outside of a building, within this Commonwealth, by an unnaturalized foreign-born resident, shall be conclusive proof of a violation of the provisions of section one of this act, and shall render any person convicted thereof liable to the penalty as fixed by said section.
Section 4. That the presence of a shotgun or rifle in a room or house, or building or tent, or camp of any description, within this Commonwealth, occupied by or controlled by an unnaturalized foreign-born resident shall be prima facie evidence that such gun is owned or controlled by the person occupying or controlling the property in which such gun is found, and shall render such person liable to the penalty imposed by section one of this act.
Other sections provide for the full enforcement of this law.
It is now high time, and an imperative public necessity, that every state should act in this matter, before its bird life is suddenly attacked, and serious inroads made upon it. Do it NOW! The enemy is headed your way. Don't wait for him to strike the first blow!
Duty of the Italian Press and Clergy.—Now what is the best remedy for the troubles that will arise for Italians in America because of wrong principles established in Italy? It is not in the law, the police, the court and the punishment. It is ineducating the Italian into a knowledge of the duties of the good citizen! The Italian press and clergy can do this; andno one else can do it so easily, so quickly and so well!
Those two powerful forces should enter seriously upon this task. In every other respect, the naturalized Italian tries to become a goodcitizen, and adjust himself to the laws and the customs of his new country. Why should he not do this in regard to bird life? It is not too much to ask, nor is it too much toexact. Does the Italian workman, or store-keeper who makes his living by honest toilenjoybreaking our bird laws,enjoyirritating and injuring those with whom he has come to live? Does heenjoybeing watched, and searched, and chased, and arrested,—all for a few small birds that hedoes not needfor food? He earns good wages; he has plenty of good food; and he must beeducatedinto protecting our birds instead of destroying them. The Italian newspapers and clergy have a serious duty to perform in this matter, and we hope they will diligently discharge it.
DEAD SONG-BIRDS
These jars contain the dead bodies of 43 valuable insectivorous birds that were taken from two Italians in October, 1905, in the suburbs of New York City, by game wardens of the New York Zoological Society.