Nationally, the ranks of companies on the Nasdaq exchange have shrunk by more than a third, from 5,556 in December 1996 to 3,663 last month.

And their ranks have shrunk since 2003 even as air travel has increased.

Yet now believers say their ranks are shrinking under more insidious pressures: televisions, cars and video games.

Officials at the police and firefighter unions noted that their ranks were already shrinking through retirements and resignations.

Local and international aid organizations here are trying to stave off these deaths, but their ranks are shrinking.

That comes, by the way, at a time when the ranks of analysts have already shrunk.

The ranks of government supporters had shrunk from 453 in 1959 to 259 in 1962.

By the time the delegates left town three days later, the ranks of the too-much camp had shrunk to 47.7 percent of delegates.

Department after department, rocked by scandals and racked by recessions, saw their ranks shrink.

But elsewhere, the ranks of big believers may be shrinking.