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UPLAND PLOVER, OR BARTRAMIAN SANDPIPER.
Menaced with extinction in 1911 and still (1916) in danger. (From a drawing
made by Louis Agassiz Fuertes for the National Association of Audubon
Societies, and first reproduced in Bird-Lore.)
A HISTORY OF THE
Game Birds, Wild-Fow]l
and Shore Birds
OF
Massachusetts and Adjacent States /
Including those used for food which have disappeared since the
settlement of the country, and those which are now hunted
for food or sport, with observations on their
former abundance and recent decrease
in numbers; also the means for
conserving those still
in existence
By Edward Howe _Forbush
State Ornithologist of Massachusetts
ZS56/0
Second Edition, 1916
Issued by the
Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture
By Authority of the Legislature of 1912
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JUL 29 1981
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WRIGHT & POTTER PRINTING COMPANY, STATE PRINTERS
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Che Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Resolves of 1910, Chapter 90.
A RESOLVE TO PROVIDE FOR THE PREPARATION AND PRINTING OF A SPECIAL
REPORT ON THE GAME BIRDS OF THE COMMONWEALTH.
Resolved, That there be allowed and paid out of the treasury of the
commonwealth a sum not exceeding four thousand dollars for preparing and
printing, under the direction of the state board of agriculture, in an edition
of five thousand copies, a special report on the game birds of the common-
wealth economically considered, to include the facts already ascertained by
the state ornithologist, relating to their history, value and the necessity for
their protection, to be distributed as follows: — Two copies to each free
public library in the commonwealth; two copies to each high school, and
two copies to such schools in towns which have no high school as the school
committee may designate; one copy to the library of congress and one copy
to each state or territorial library in the United States; ten copies to the
state library; one copy to the governor; one copy to the lieutenant governor
and each member of the council; one copy to the secretary of the common-
wealth; one copy to the treasurer and receiver general; one copy to the
auditor of the commonwealth; one copy to the attorney-general; one copy
to each member of the present general court applying for the same; one
copy to each elective officer of the present general court; one copy to each
member of the state board of agriculture; five copies to the secretary of the
state board of agriculture; and four hundred and fifty copies to the state
ornithologist for distribution to those who have assisted by contributing
material for the report; the remaining copies to be sold by the secretary
of the state board of agriculture at a price not less than the cost thereof.
Additional copies may be printed for sale at the discretion of the secretary
of the state board of agriculture, the expense thereof to be paid from the
receipts of such sales. Any amount received from sales shall be paid into
the treasury of the commonwealth. [Approved May 5, 1910.
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7
PREFACE,
This volume is intended to fill a place heretofore unfilled,
in at least two respects, by any American work. The former
abundance and later decrease of the migratory game birds of
eastern North America have been studied and narrated at
length for the first time, and the histories of the food species
of New England which have been exterminated since the set-
tlement of the country have been brought together. This
has been done with a purpose.
Whenever legislation for the protection of shore birds or
wild-fowl has been attempted in the Maritime States of the
Atlantic seaboard, certain interested individuals have come
forward to oppose it, with the plea that these birds are not
decreasing in numbers, but, instead, are increasing, and that
they need no further protection. Some admit that certain
species are decreasing, but argue that shooting is not respon-
sible for this condition. Similar statements are made in sup-
port of proposed legislation for the repeal of existing protective
laws.
The object of the investigation on which this volume is
based was to secure information from historical and ornitho-
logical works, and from ornithologists, sportsmen and gun-
ners, regarding the increase or decrease of the birds which
are hunted for food or sport.
The report is published with the intention, first, to show
the former abundance of resident and migratory game birds
in America and their subsequent decrease in numbers; second,
to furnish gunners and others with the means of identifying
game birds, that the people may recognize the different species
and thus fit themselves to observe protective laws; and third,
to demonstrate how these birds may be conserved. The nar-
ratives of early explorers and pioneers show plainly the former
abundance of game birds. The unbiased statements of orni-
vi PRE RAGE:
thologists of the nineteenth century exhibit the great decrease
in numbers of many species, and estimates summarized in
this volume indicate that the majority of the best informed
gunners themselves now admit that the decrease of these
birds has continued during the past thirty years, and that it
is due largely to overshooting; therefore, the report will serve
as a basis for both restrictive and constructive legislation for
the protection and propagation of game birds.
The descriptions in Part I, written mainly in language
understood by the people, and the cuts which have been made
to show the form and markings of the species, taken together,
will answer the second purpose for which the book is written.
Prominent markings which readily may be recognized in the
field, and which will help in identifying the birds, are given
under the head of ‘field marks.” The representations of the
notes and calls of birds are taken mainly from the writings of
others. Attempts to suggest bird notes on paper almost
always are inadequate. My own always have been unsatis-
factory, but it is hoped that those given may be of some assist-
ance to the beginner. Brief descriptions of the nests and eggs
of the species now nesting in Massachusetts or near-by States,
or which are believed to have nested here formerly are given
as a possible help to identification.
An attempt has been made to interest the reader in these
much-persecuted birds for their own sake. For this reason
the range, migration and habits of each bird are touched
upon in nearly all cases.
In the introduction an attempt is made to narrate briefly
the history of the decrease of resident and migratory game
birds along the Atlantic seaboard. Part I continues this his-
tory, but particularizes and localizes by taking up separately
each individual species that has been recorded from Massa-
chusetts and near-by States. Part II groups together the
histories of the species utilized as food which have disap-
peared from New England since the settlement of the country,
and exhibits the causes that brought about the destruction of
these species. Part III analyzes the causes of the decrease
of the species of game birds, wild-fowl and shore birds that
BNE RACE: Vii
are still extant, and indicates how they may be conserved and
how depleted areas may be restocked with certain species.
It was my intention before beginning the work to under-
take an investigation of the food of wild-fowl and shore birds,
but as Mr. W. L. McAtee of the Bureau of Biological Survey
of the United States Department of Agriculture was then
engaged in a similar quest, and hoped to have the results
published, I arranged with him to make use of his publication,
and give credit to the Survey. Unfortunately, very little of
the results of Mr. McAtee’s work have been published, and
this volume necessarily goes to press with but a small part
of them. For this reason the observations on the food of
these birds have not been brought down to date.
Many of Mr. Beecroft’s drawings, from which the line
cuts of the birds were made, have been corrected, and some
of them have been largely redrawn by myself, with the assist-
ance of Miss Annie E. Chase. Miss Chase also made the
drawing of the Whcoping Crane, the plate of which faces
page 477. Mr. Beecroft was handicapped in his work by
having no opportunity to make studies from the living birds,
and by being obliged to draw his inspiration from skins,
stuffed specimens, photographs and_ the illustrations of
others. The drawings for the cuts of the Wood Duck, the
Mallard and the Red Phalarope are my own; also the draw-
ings for the cuts on pages 40, 49, 59, 70, 111, 147, 202, 224,
228, 230, 271, 277, 326, 331 and 417 (all after C. B. Cory), and
the figures on pages 133 and 147. All concerned in the prep-
aration of the drawings must acknowledge their indebted-
ness to many artists from the time of Audubon to the present
day, and particularly to Mr. Louis Agassiz Fuertes, whose
excellent drawings as figured in Eaton’s Birds of New York,
gave many suggestions. The faults of the illustrations are
obvious, but every effort has been made to secure such rep-
resentations of form, proportion and markings as to make
the species recognizable. It was my intention to have the
birds of each family represented in Part I figured in proper
proportion one to the other, —to have the Sandpipers, for ex-
ample, of such relative size as to suggest the differences in
Viii PRE RACE:
size between the different species. The engraver has not
always been accurate in his reductions, but, in the main, the
idea has been carried out.
The bibliography which was planned for publication here-
with was crowded out because of the vast amount of material
available for the work, which has resulted in increasing its
bulk beyond the limit at first contemplated, and which has
made necessary an abridgment of even the index; but the
names of authors, contributors and collectors are inserted in
the index because of the omission of the bibliography.
What an embarrassment is that of the author who desires
to acknowledge his indebtedness to those who have gone
before! I am under obligations to many hundreds of indi-
viduals from the early explorers, like Champlain and Hudson,
down through the centuries to the ornithologists and sports-
men of the present day. A long list of the names of observ-
ers who have furnished information in regard to the commoner
species is presented on the last pages of this volume, and many
correspondents in many States whose names are not mentioned
there are gratefully remembered. The writings of Mr. Wil-
liam Brewster, Dr. C. W. Townsend and Dr. D. G. Elliot
have been exceedingly helpful, and those of many others have
furnished facts and suggestions. In this connection mention
should be made of a description of a flight of water-fowl in
“The Water-fowl Family,”’ by Sanford, Bishop and Van Dyke,
which furnished the model for a similar description on page
4 of this volume. I am indebted particularly to my friends,
Mr. William Brewster and Dr. George W. Field, who have
kindly read brief parts of the manuscript, and more than I
can tell to my wife, who has patiently assisted in reading
manuscript and proof, and to Mr. Wilson H. Fay for his work
upon the index. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the courtesy
of the managements of Collier’s Weekly, Forest and Stream and
Bird-Lore, who, with many others, have given permission to
quote or to use illustrations. Acknowledgments are due to Rev.
Herbert K. Job, Mr. Charlesworth Levy, Mr. Howard H. Cleaves
and others, whose names are mentioned elsewhere, for photo-
graphs. The Bureau of Biological Survey of the United
JP RIEIF/NCIE: iX
States Department of Agriculture has placed me under great
obligations for much information for which the Survey has
not always been given credit in the text; Prof. W. W. Cooke’s
paper on the Distribution and Migration of American Ducks,
Geese and Swans, also his paper on the Distribution and Migra-
tion of North American Shore Birds, and Mr. W. L. McAtee’s
paper on Our Vanishing Shore Birds, all published by the
Survey, have been utilized freely in the preparation of this
volume. It would be extremely ungracious for any one at
the present day to write anything on the economic relations
of birds without acknowledging his indebtedness to the pains-
taking workers of the Survey, who have given to the world
the greatest amount of valuable material on such subjects
ever published anywhere. Mr. Charles W. Johnson, curator
of the Museum of the Boston Natural History Society, has
given every opportunity to both author and artist whenever
specimens have been needed for examination. Mr. Ralph
Holman has placed all his field notes at my disposal. The
ornithological nomenclature used in heading each description
of a species is that contained in the third edition of the Check
List of the American Ornithologists Union, published in 1910.
The range of each species is taken from the Check List in
nearly all cases, though somewhat abridged. The statements
regarding the decrease of birds taken from various authors
are not quoted in full, but are abridged, care being taken not
to distort their assertions. Dr. M. L. Fernald has placed me
under obligations by bringing down to date the names of plants
in the lists on pages 582-587. Other scientific nomenclature
of plants and animals is given unchanged as taken from various
authors from the time of Audubon to the present day.
Much of the manuscript necessarily was written and re-
vised when I was fully occupied in other work of an executive
character, often when travelling by train or boat, and at a
distance from any library; otherwise, the task could not have
been completed within the time limit. It is to be regretted that
a work of this kind should have been done of necessity under
circumstances of pressure that precluded literary excellence,
but care has been exercised to state only facts, and I have en-
X PRERACE:
deavored always to give credit to other authors whenever it
has been feasible.
It remains to express my gratitude to Mr. J. Lewis Ells-
worth, secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, and the
members of the Board, who have advocated the publication
of this work and loyally supported the undertaking. This
support has made the publication possible, and to these gen-
tlemen is due whatever credit may be given. The responsi-
bility for the shortcomings of the work is my own.
Epwarp Hower Forsush.
JUNE 1, 1912.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
In the seven years that have elapsed since this volume was
projected, many changes have taken place. Many individuals,
associations and States have adopted measures recommended
herein for the purpose of protecting and increasing game birds,
shore birds or wild fowl. Massachusetts has taken up most of
these recommendations and the Legislature has enacted laws
embodying many of them. Already the results of these various
beneficial enactments have been felt over wide areas. The Con-
gress of the United States, conforming to one of these recom-
mendations, has enacted a statute making migratory game birds
and insectivorous birds wards of the government. Certain
game birds are increasing in numbers, and the situation is much
more hopeful than it was in 1908.
Appendices have been added to this edition to permit refer-
ence to these changes and to make room for certain records of
occurrences of rare birds that have been noted or published since
the first edition was made ready for the printer. Otherwise,
comparatively few changes have been made to bring the first
edition down to date.
Much more information regarding the food of many species
might be added now from the publications of the Biological
Survey and from other sources, but as the first edition was elec-
trotyped, the cost of making numerous changes in the plates
would be prohibitive, and the task must be left for a later
edition.
Epwarp Howe Forsusu.
Avaeust 24, 1915.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION: — PAGE
America, A Country of Game Birds, Fi 5 ‘i ; ; - , 1
Abundance of Game found by Explorers and Colonists, . : ; ; 6
Former Abundance of Game Birds in the West and South, ‘ : : 12
The Decrease of Edible Birds, 22
PART I:
A History oF THE BIRDS NOW HUNTED FOR Foop oR Sport IN MAssAcuu-
SETTS AND ADJACENT STATES: —
Grebes, : : : ; ; : ‘ , : F : » 39
Loons, ‘ : ‘ : : : ; : ‘ : : . 49
Mergansers, A : : ; A . : A 4 oS
River Ducks, : : : : 5 ; : : : : 2 69
Bay and Sea Ducks, . é : : : 5 F : elalet
Geese, s j F : j : F ‘ j P : . 169
Swans, . £ ‘ : : : d : 3 : P 5 oO
Rails, Crakes, Gallinules and Coots, , . : 5 4 ; 5 201
Phalaropes, , ; 5 ‘ ; , é F : ; 5 224
Avocets and Stilts, ‘ : 2 A ; ‘ : 5 ; 5) 230
Snipes, Sandpipers, etc., ; é ‘ ‘ : ; : ; 235
Plovers, : ; F ‘ ; j : , . : F . 334
Turnstones, ‘ ; : : j : i 3 F ; . 3858
Oyster-catchers, . : q : i: ; 5 F 5 : » ool
Bob-whites, : : : p j : : ; ; ; . 3867
Grouse, F : F : : ; : : ‘ : : ; ono
Pigeons and Doves, ; ; : : : : P ; : . 393
PART II.
A History oF THE GAME Birps AND OTHER BIRDS HUNTED FOR Foop oR
SporRT WHICH HAVE BEEN DRIVEN OUT OF MASSACHUSETTS AND
ADJACENT STATES, OR EXTERMINATED SINCE THE SETTLEMENT
OF THE COUNTRY: —
Extinct Species, . : : F é ‘ ' : ; : . 399
Great Auk, . : : é , : : : : : . 3899
Labrador Duck, . - 3 5 : : ! , ; 5 2 alilil
Eskimo Curlew, . 4 ‘ ; : ; F ? : . 416
Passenger Pigeon, . 5 : : : : : : 5 . 4383
Extirpated Species, : , ‘. : ‘ : ‘ ; : 7 A2
Trumpeter Swan, . : ‘ : : , 3 ‘ : . 472
Whooping Crane, . : ; 5 < ‘: - ‘ ; A
Sandhill Crane, 2 5 A ‘ ; 5 ; : 483)
Wild Turkey, , : 5 ; : : 3 : A . 487
xiv CONTENTS.
PART Vik.
THE CONSERVATION OF GAME BrtrRpDs, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE Birps: —
The Economic Value of Game Birds, Wild-fowl and Shore Birds,
The Decrease of Game Birds in Massachusetts,
The Reproductive Powers of Nature,
The Causes of the Decrease of Game Birds,
Market Hunting,
Spring Shooting,
Summer Shooting, . :
Settlement and Agriculture as a Cause for the Decrease of Wild-fowl, .
Night Shooting,
Pursuing Wild-fowl in Boats, .
The Use of Live Decoys,
The Elements, Storms and Cold,
Epidemic Diseases,
Natural Enemies, : ; ; :
Telegraph, Telephone and Trolley Wires,
Minor Causes of the Decrease of Birds, .
Lead Poisoning,
The Destruction of the Feeding Grounds,
Erroneous Opinions regarding the Causes of the Decrease of Game Birds,
Wild-fowl and Shore Birds,
The Destruction of the Eggs of Wild-fowl for Commercial Purposes,
The Decline of Agriculture,
The Increase of Cottages and Camps,
The Shortening of the Open Season,
Guns Most Destructive, :
The Viewpoint of the Hunter,
The Introduction of Foreign Game Birds,
Game Preserving, .
The Game Preserve increases Insectivorous Birds,
Methods of Attracting Water-fowl, . . P - : 0 ;
Attracting Upland Game Birds, ¢ 5 é .
Statutory Game Protection, . 5
Federal Supervision of the Protection of Migratory Birds,
Public Game and Bird Reservations,
A Brief Summary of Needed Reforms for Game Protection,
Enforcement of the Game Laws, . ; C ¢ : : : :
A List of the Names of those who filled out the Blank Forms for Informa-
tion, which form the Basis of the Estimates on the Recent De-
crease of Game Birds, Wild-fowl and Shore Birds, A 6
AppreNpDIx A.— Records of the Occurrence of Rare or Accidental Species not
contained in the First Edition, . 0
APPENDIX B.— Progress in Game Protection since the First Edition was written,
INDEX, ‘ é ‘ : 6 : :
PAGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Upland Plover (Colored Plate),
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PratTE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
I. — River Ducks and Swans, F : :
Il. — Two Baldpates on Leverett Pond, Boston,
III. — Canvas-back and Baldpate on Leverett Pond, Boston,
IV. — Group of Bay Ducks,
V.— Nest of Eider,
VI. — Barnacle Goose,
VII. — Woodcock on Nest, ;
VIII. — Spotted Sandpiper (Young),
IX. — Spotted Sandpiper (Adult),
X.— Ruffed Grouse Drumming,
XI. — Heath Hen,
XII. — Great Auk, .
XIII. — Labrador Duck, .
XIV. — Eskimo Curlew, .
XV.— The Last Passenger Pigeon,
XVI. — Pigeon Net, :
XVII. — Young Passenger Pigeon, ‘ : ;
XVIII. — Eggs of Passenger Pigeon and Mourning Dove,
XIX. — Band-tailed Pigeon, Passenger Pigeon and Mourn-
ing Dove,
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
XX. — Trumpeter Swan,
XXI.— Whooping Crane,
XXII. — Sandhill Crane,
XXIII. — Wild Turkey,
XXIV. — Propagation,
XXV.— Protection, 4 ;
XXVI. — Attracting Canada Geese, . :
XXVII. — A Result of stopping Spring Shooting,
XXVIII. — Wild-fowl on a Game Farm,
XXIX.— A Breeding Pen for Bob-whites,
XX X.— Group of Bob-whites in Confinement, .
XXXI.— Wild Rice in Flower,
XXXII. — Winter Buds of Wild Celery,
XX XIII. — Seed Pods of Wild Celery, :
XXXIV. — Wide-ranging Species of Pondweed, .
XXXV.— Wide-ranging Species of Pondweed,
XXXVI. — Winter Shelter for Quail,
Frontispiece
faces page 39
faces page 69
faces page 69
faces page 111
faces page 150
faces page 193
faces page 235
faces page 322
faces page 322
faces page 377
faces page 385
faces page 399
faces page 411
faces page 416
faces page 433
faces page 438
faces page 450
faces page 460
faces page 460
faces page 472
faces page 477
faces page 483
faces page 487
faces page 497
faces page 497
faces page 508
faces page 524
faces page 540
563
page 563
faces page
faces
faces page 571
faces page 576
faces page 576
between pages 578 and 579
. between pages 578 and 579
faces page 581
xvi
EIST OF VEELUSTRATIONS:
Holboell’s Grebe,
Horned Grebe,
Pied-billed Grebe,
Loon, ; :
Black-throated Loon, .
Red-throated Loon,
Merganser, :
Red-breasted Merganser,
Hooded Merganser,
Mallard,
Black Duck,
Gadwall,
Baldpate, .
Green-winged Teal,
Blue-winged Teal,
Shoveller, .
Pintail (Male),
Pintail (Female),
Wood Duck,
Redhead,
Canvas-back,
Scaup,
Lesser Scaup,
Ring-necked Duck,
Golden-eye,
Buffle-head,
Old-Squaw (Males),
Old-Squaw (Female), .
Harlequin Duck,
Eider,
Scoter, : P é
White-winged Scoter, .
Surf Scoter,
Ruddy Duck,
Snow Goose,
Blue Goose, i
White-fronted Goose, .
Canada Goose,
Brant, 3
Whistling Swan,
Clapper Rail,
Virginia Rail,
Sora Rail, .
Cuts.
PAGE
41
56
57
60
64
67
71
76
81
86
gil
95
99
102
104
105
113
118
121
124
127
129
135
139
140
144
148
153
160
163
166
170
174
175
Ne
183
194
205
207
210
Elsi OF TLEUSTRATIONS: XVii
PAGE
Yellow Rail, ; é : Fi : : ? ‘ ‘ ; ‘ Pecils
Black Rail, é : : 3 : é : : : : ‘ 5 PALES
Purple Gallinule, f 5 : : : 7 ‘ ‘ ; : 5. PALE
Florida Gallinule, , : , F 2 5 ‘ j , ; 5 Ale)
Coot, P 221
Red Phalarope, . 225
Northern Phalarope, 227
Wilson’s Phalarope, 229
Avocet, : 231
Black-necked Stilt, 233
Wilson’s Snipe, . 245
Dowitcher, 253
Stilt Sandpiper, . : : : ; . 260
Knot, ; : : ; ‘ : : : : : : ; . 262
Purple Sandpiper, 268
Pectoral Sandpiper, 270
White-rumped Sandpiper, 274
Baird’s Sandpiper, 77
Least Sandpiper,
Red-backed Sandpiper,
own Ww
Qo SI
wo ©
Semipalmated Sandpiper, 86
Sanderling, 290
Marbled Godwit, 294
Hudsonian Godwit, , _ 297
Greater Yellow-legs, . ‘ : i : ; : ; : ; . 300
Yellow-legs, : : : : : ‘ ; 5 : ; ; 303
Solitary Sandpiper, , : : ; : 2 : : ‘ 1 . 3806
Willet, : 5 é F : : A ; . 309
Buff-breasted Sandpiper, : : : : : : 3 3 : 5. 40)
Long-billed Curlew, . : ‘ ‘ é : ; j : 3 - 3825
Hudsonian Curlew, . ; ; ‘ : ; ‘ ; : : . 3830
Black-bellied Plover, . , ; 5 : ; : x é : 5 pits)
Golden Plover, . ; : ; 2 : 6 é F : 5 okt
Killdeer Plover, : ‘ : : : : ; : Xi sae . 3848
Semipalmated Plover, : : ‘ Z F ; 3 ‘ : . 302
Piping Plover, . 5 : ; : : ; ‘ ‘ : ; OO4:
Ruddy Turnstone, : : : : : : : : F ; . 359
Oyster-catcher, . 5 ; , e : 5 : 3 ; ; On
Bob-white, : : : ; ; ; ; : : ‘ : . 3868
FIGURES IN THE TEXT.
Figure 1.— Foot of Grebe, ; : ; F ; ; : ‘ . 40
Fiaure 2. — Foot of Loon, ; : : : 6 5 ; ; . 49
Figure 3.— Bill of Merganser, . A . ; 5 5 ‘ ‘ 2 59
Ficure 4. — Foot of River Duck, : : 2 : : ‘ 7 > tho)
XViii JEWS Oe WELIWSIRAT IONS:
PAGE
Figure 5. — Axillars of Baldpate, Axillars of European Widgeon, 84
Figure 6. — Foot of Sea Duck, 111
Figure 7.— Head of Female Ring-necked Duck, 128
Figure 8. — Head of Barrow’s Golden-eye (Male), 133
Figure 9. — Bills of Eiders, 147
Figure 10.— Head of Male King Eider, 152
Ficure 11. — Foot of Coot, 202
Figure 12. — Foot of Red Phalarope, 224
Figure 13.— Foot of Northern Phalarope, 228
Fiaure 14. — Foot of Wilson’s Phalarope, 230
Ficure 15.— Tail of Pectoral Sandpiper, 271
Figure 16.— Tail of Baird’s Sandpiper, : d ; 277
Fiaure 17. — First Primary and Axillars of Long-billed Curlew, 326
Figure 18. — First Primary and Axillars of Hudsonian Curlew, 331
Fraure 19. — Head of Wilson’s Plover, : . 357
Figure 20. — Axillars and First Primary of Eskimo Curlew, 417
Figure 21. — Pigeon Basket, 440
Figure 22. — Wild Rice, 574
Figure 23. — Wild Celery, F ; : 576
Figure 24. — Leaves of Wild Celery, showing Venation, 577
Figure 25. — Sago Pondweed, 579
Figure 26. — Tubers of Sago Pondweed, 580
GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND
SHORE BIRDS.
Game Birds, Wild-fowl and Shore Birds.
INTRODUCTION.
AMERICA, A COUNTRY OF GAME BIRDS.
North America, at the time of its discovery, probably con-
tained more game birds in proportion to its size than any other
land. One hundred and seventy distinct species of game birds
are found on this continent, and the list might be considerably
extended by adding other birds which, although not considered
as game, have been used for food. The check list of the Amer-
ican Ornithologists’ Union (1910) gives twenty-four species and
subspecies of Doves and Pigeons; six of Turkeys; forty-two of
Grouse; nineteen of Bob-whites, etc.; sixteen of Plover; seventy
of Snipe, Sandpipers, Godwits, etc.; twenty-six of Rails and
Cranes, etc.; and seventy-four of edible web-footed wild-fowl,
—all of which (excluding some necessary duplications) might
be included in the list of North American game birds.
Game birds bred in countless numbers throughout the region
now known as the United States and Mexico, when America
first became known to Europeans. In autumn, winter and
spring the migratory species swarmed in this region in num-
bers unprecedented in the experience of man in any land.
The shape and situation of the continent and islands of North
America are such as to provide in the temperate and northern
portions an immense breeding ground for migratory birds, and
to congest them in the southern part during the fall, winter
and early spring. The general conformation of the North
American continent is that of a triangle, with its base lying in
the arctic regions and its apex south of the tropic of Cancer.
The distance across the northern part of the continent, meas-
uring from the easternmost point of Newfoundland to the
northwestern shores of Alaska, is more than four thousand
miles, and from the eastern point of Greenland to the western-
2 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
most of the Aleutian Islands is quite as far. Contrast this
with the distance from the lower coast of Georgia to the Gulf
of California (less than two thousand miles). Note also that
a line drawn across Mexico on the tropic of Cancer measures
less than six hundred miles. Such conditions are found in no
other continent.
The position of South America is exactly the opposite in
relation to bird migration, for the apex of the triangle of that
continent lies toward the south pole and its base les near
the equator; therefore, there could be no such congestion of
species caused by migration from the colder or southern parts
of that continent toward the equator as is found in North
America, when the birds that breed in the vast expanse of
the north migrate to the comparatively contracted southern
regions.
The lands of the eastern hemisphere, taken as one large
continent, are wider toward the equator than toward the poles,
and no conditions are found there similar to those in North
America, except perhaps in China, Indo-China, the peninsula
of India and the Malay peninsula, in all of which a congestion
of species similar to that once found in North America prob-
ably occurs in the migration periods, but on a smaller scale.
North America has an advantage over all other countries in
its great arctic breeding grounds, that offer extensive nesting
places and feeding grounds for water birds.
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BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. lll
may induce Wood Ducks to nest there. This device is often
successful, and I have seen a Wood Duck family that was
reared in a nest of this kind. Where they are unmolested
they become tame.
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——— -=——
Length. — 23 to 28 inches.
Adult. — Plumage white; head and fore parts sometimes rusty; primaries
black; bill dark red or salmon pink, black-edged; iris dark brown; feet
red.
Young. — Head, neck and upper parts grayish; rump paler; under parts
white; bill and feet dark.
Field Marks. —In the field this species is indistinguishable from the suc-
ceeding species. Both are white, showing black wing tips. The young
appear white below, with grayish heads and necks. When flying high
in migration the movement of the wings is often barely perceptible.
Notes. — A solitary softened honk (Elliot).
Season. — Usually a rare or accidental fall migrant; early October to De-
cember.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 171
Range. — North America. Breeds from mouth of the Mackenzie east
probably to Coronation Gulf and Melville Island; occurs on the arctic
coast of northeastern Asia, but not known to breed there; winters from
southern British Columbia, southern Colorado, and southern Illinois
south to northern Lower California, central Mexico (Jalisco), Texas
and Louisiana, and on the Asiatic coast south to Japan; generally rare
in eastern United States.
History.
White Geese once visited the coasts of New England in
enormous numbers. Hearne (1795) found them the most
numerous of all birds that frequented the northern parts
of Hudson Bay, and said that some of the Indians killed
upwards of one hundred in a day. The early chroniclers of
Massachusetts mentioned White Geese with the Gray Geese,
and implied that they came in equal numbers. Wood (1629-
34) says ‘‘ the second kind is a White Goose, almost as big
as an English tame Goose, these come in great flockes about
Michelmasse, sometimes there will be two or three thousand
in a flocke, those continue six weekes, and so flye to the south-
ward returning in March and staying six weekes more, re-
turning againe to the Northward.” From what is known of
the distribution of the Snow Goose it is probable that these
birds were mainly the Greater Snow Goose, which has a more
eastward range than the Snow Goose. The Snow Goose must
have mostly disappeared from Massachusetts during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for Audubon (1838)
states that Snow Geese are rare both in Massachusetts and
South Carolina, although they pass over those States in con-
siderable numbers. De Kay (1844) speaks of them as rather
rare in New York. Turnbull (1869) says that they are rather
rare in spring and autumn in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Samuels (1870) states that they are rare on the New England
sea-coast, and Allen (1879) records them as rare winter visit-
ants. To-day the Snow Goose is rarely taken in Massa-
chusetts waters; but White Geese have been seen in recent
years in practically every county of the State, and still migrate
in small numbers along our shores or across the State.
Mr. Sigmund Klaiber states that one or two flocks of forty
or fifty are seen every year in Franklin County. Mr. Robert
i GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
O. Morris states that he has seen a Snow Goose twice near
Springfield. Mr. Edwin Leonard says that one was taken
several years ago and put with a flock of domestic Geese.
Mr. William P. Milner of Concord, Middlesex County, says
that there are a few left, and he believes that they are increas-
ing. Mr. Charles J. Paine, Jr., has seen a large flock within
a year. Mr. Alfred E. Gould of Malden has seen twenty in
twenty years. Mr. Charles L. Perkins of Newburyport
records one killed in December, 1908, and Mr. Herbert F.
Chase of Amesbury states that they have been shot there
three or four times within thirty years. Mr. Rockwell F.
Coffin of Norfolk County saw them at Chatham in 1905.
The species is reported in Plymouth County by Mr. B. T.
Williamson, who says that he saw a flock six years ago, and
by Mr. Wiley S. Damon, who has seen them but has not
taken any. Mr. A. C. Bent and Mr. Horace Tinkham regard
them as stragglers in Bristol County. Five observers report
them as rare in Barnstable County. Mr. Isaac Hills of Nan-
tucket says that he has not known of any killed there in
twenty-five years. All these notes may refer to either this or
the succeeding species. Dr. C. W. Townsend gives specific
instances of the occurrence of this species in Essex County,
and it is recorded in recent years from all the New England
States and New York. Several flocks of White Geese have
been seen and recorded by others in Massachusetts in recent
years (see Bird-Lore). This species is still plentiful in some
parts of the west and southwest, although Mr. J. D. Mitchell
reports from Texas that he formerly saw great numbers in
flocks on the prairie and now sees but from five to ten in the
average flock, and Mr. A. S. Eldredge states that he “ used
to see great numbers there, but only saw one in 1908.””!
The bird is so conspicuous and receives so little protection
that its chances for extinction are good, unless it is better
protected. Also, it is often destructive to grain and grass in
the west, and for this reason where it is numerous it incurs
the enmity of the farmers, who welcome any one who will
shoot it. It feeds more or less on berries and green vegetation.
1 See Appendix A for more recent New England records.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 173
GREATER SNOW GOOSE (Chen hyperboreus nivalis).
Length. — 30 to 38 inches.
Adult and Young. — Similar in color to the Snow Goose, but larger.
Season. — Formerly probably an abundant migrant in spring and fall; now
only an accidental straggler, mainly in fall or winter.
Range. — Eastern North America. Arctic America in summer; full breed-
ing range not known; but breeds in North Greenland, Ellesmere Land
and on Whale Sound; winters from southern Illinois, Chesapeake Bay
and Massachusetts (rarely) south to Louisiana, Florida, and in West
Indies to Porto Rico; in migration rarely west to Colorado and east to
New England.
History.
The earlier writers record White Geese in great numbers
on the Atlantic coast from New England to the Carolinas,
and from what we know of the present distribution of the
Greater Snow Goose it is fair to assume that they were
mainly of this species, as it is normally of the region east of the
Mississippi, and not a far western migrant, like the preceding
species. Morton (1632), who made a practice of hunting
Geese at Wollaston, Mass., states that the White Geese were
bigger than the Brant, and as Wood says that they were
almost as big as tame Geese, the Greater Snow Goose prob-
ably made up the majority of those once so numerous in New
England. Audubon says that he met with the Snow Goose
in fall and winter in every part of the United States that he
visited. What a change has occurred since his day! This
Goose still appears in large flocks near Cape Hatteras and
along Albemarle Sound (Elliot, 1898); but it is now merely
accidental in New England, and there is no definite record of
its capture in Massachusetts. It is less rare in New York
than here; but Eaton gives only seventeen records of its
occurrence there (1875-1910). It is not difficult to account
for its decrease. When it is well fed no wild Goose can excel
it in richness of flavor as a table fowl. (See Appendix A.)
The Lesser Snow Goose, being usually strong or rank in
flavor and more western in distribution, has not decreased so
much. The conspicuousness of the larger species, its eastern
range and its superior flavor account for its scarcity here.
174 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
BLUE GOOSE (Chen caerulescens).
Length. — About 25 to 28 inches.
Adult. — Back grayish brown; head, upper part of neck and rump bluish
gray; wings same, shading to black at ends; flanks grayish brown;
feathers tipped with pale brown; tail dusky, edged with white; under
parts white; bill and feet purplish red.
Young. — Like adult, except head and neck dark grayish brown; chin only
white.
Range. — Eastern North America. Breeding range unknown, but proba-
bly interior of northern Ungava; winters from Nebraska and southern |
Illinois south to coasts of Texas and Louisiana; rare or casual in migra-
tion in California, and from New Hampshire to Florida, Cuba and the
Bahamas.
Hisrory.
There is no reason to believe that this western species was
ever more than casual here. A young female, shot at Gloucester,
October 20, 1876, is now in the collection of the Boston Society
of Natural History.!
1 Jeffries, Wm. A.: Auk, 1889, p. 68.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 175
WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE (Anser albifrons gambeli).
Undid (NE
An
SW Wg ac vy
HN
NK aw AS Sane
Length. — 27 to 30 inches.
Adult in Fall and Winter. — Above brownish gray, the feathers paler on
edges; forehead, fore face and after parts white; wings and tail dark;
tail tipped and edged with white; under parts, except white ventral
parts, brownish gray, with large blotches of black; a white or whitish
line on upper edge of flank; bill pale carmine or pink, with white nail
(the bill turns yellow in the breeding season); feet yellow; iris dark
brown.
Young. — Similar but browner; markings more suffused, and without black
blotches below or white on face; bill, eyes and feet as in adult, but bill
has no white on tip.
Range. — Central and western North America and Pacific coast of Asia.
Breeds on and near the Arctic coast from northeastern Siberia east to
northeastern Mackenzie and south to lower Yukon valley; winters
commonly from southern British Columbia to southern Lower Cali-
fornia and Jalisco, and rarely from southern Illinois, southern Ohio and
New Jersey south to northeastern Mexico, southern Texas and Cuba,
and on the Asiatic coast to China and Japan; rare in migration on the
Atlantic coast north to Ungava.
176 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
History.
The White-fronted Goose was formerly an uncommon
spring and autumn migrant on our coast (Howe and Allen).
Dr. J. A. Allen (1879) gives it as a rare migrant, spring and
fall, and says that Dr. Brewer states that it was more common
thirty or forty years ago, as was the case with many of our
other Ducks and Geese. It is now regarded as a mere strag-
gler on the entire Atlantic coast. There are but five definite
records of its occurrence in Massachusetts. A male is recorded
as having been shot in Quincy and presented to the Boston
Society of Natural History (1849).!. In Plymouth an adult
male was shot November 26, 1897, by Mr. Paul W. Gifford;
this specimen is now in the Brewster collection.? Since the first
edition of this book was written the following additional Massa-
chusetts records of the occurrence of this species have been
published. Mr. Benjamin F. Damsell records two that were
killed on the Salisbury marshes, October 5, 1888. An adult
bird which had been wounded was captured on Great Neck,
Ipswich, by Mr. A. B. Clark in August, 1907. This bird
lived several years, and several unsuccessful attempts were
made to cross it with a wild Canada Goose. There are five
New York records substantiated by specimens (Eaton).
It is known as a Brant in some of our western States,
where it is abundant in migration. Formerly it was common
as far east as the Ohio River, and specimens are likely to
occur in Massachusetts.
The flight of the White-fronted Goose is similar to that of
the Canada Goose. There is the same V-shaped formation,
and at a distance it readily might be mistaken for that of the
Canada Goose.
Audubon says that in Kentucky this Goose feeds on beech
nuts, acorns, grain, young blades of grass and snails.
1 Cabot, Samuel: Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 1851, Vol. II, p. 136.
2 Brewster, William: Auk, 1901, p. 135.
3 Allen, Glover M.: Auk, Jan., 1913, p. 22.
4 Fay, S. Prescott: Auk, 1911, p. 120.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 177
CANADA GOOSE (Branta canadensis canadensis).
Common or local names: Wild Goose; Big Gray Goose; Honker.
Length. — 35 to 43 inches.
Adult. — Head and neck black; the white of throat extends up and back on
sides of head; the body feathers with paler edges generally; back and
wings brown; under parts ashy gray mainly; lower belly and under tail
coverts white; tail black, base white.
Field Marks. — Black head and neck, with white cheek patches; great size
distinctive.
Notes. — Sonorous, varied honks.
Nest. — Usually in marsh, rarely in trees.
Eggs. — Five to nine, dull pale greenish or whitish, about 3.50 by 2.50.
Season. — Common spring and fall migrant; rare in winter; a few recently
have summered; early March to late May; late September to late
December or early January.
Range. — North America. Breeds from Alaska and Labrador south to
southern Oregon, northern Colorado, Nebraska and Indiana; formerly
south to New Mexico, Kansas, Tennessee and Massachusetts; winters
from New Jersey (rarely Newfoundland and Ontario) and British
Columbia to southern California, Texas and Louisiana.
178 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
History.
There is no sound in nature more stimulating to the mind
of the hunter than the call of the Wild Goose in the spring.
When the returning sun has burst the icy bonds of our lakes
and streams, and nature shows some signs of spring awaken-
ing; when the wood frogs begin to croak in the cheerless
sodden pool, —then we hear far away in the twilight the free
chorus of the Geese as they come coursing on the pathless air
and steering toward the pole. The baseless triangle drifting
across the sky stirs the blood of every beholder. The wild
and solemn clamor ringing down the air turns the mind of
the weary worker hemmed in by city walls to memories of
open marsh, sounding shore, winding river and placid, land-
locked bay. On they go, carrying their message to village
and city, town and farm, all over this broad land.
Never shall I forget my first curious observation of their
flight, when a little child at school. The great flocks came
sweeping across the sky, and all the children welcomed them
by pointing toward the zenith and calling “Geese! Geese!”
as hour by hour the birds crossed our field of view from
horizon to horizon. In those days, and for some time after-
ward, Geese were numerous in the migrations in most parts
of the State, and sometimes flew very low. Now they are
fewer in all except the eastern portions, and usually fly high
out of gunshot; but even then they rarely alighted in our
ponds and streams in daylight unless decoyed. The flocks
of Geese which used to alight in the fields in early days were
then a thing of the past, and no one could say, as Morton
said (1637), ‘I have often had one thousand Geese before the
muzzle of my gun.” Wood (1634) states that the Geese came
about ‘‘ Michelmasse”’ in the fall, and sometimes two or three
thousand gathered in a flock. They remained about six weeks
and again about six weeks in spring.
Of all the observers reporting to me in 1908, only one man
outside of the coast counties had seen any perceptible increase
of Wild Geese in the last thirty years. Eighteen in the coast
counties note an increase (recent in most cases) and eighty-
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 179
one report a fluctuating or continuous decrease in the numbers
of this species. Other reports along the Atlantic coast, from
Nova Scotia to South Carolina, also indicate a decrease; but
locally, at least, reports of increase come from the latter State.
Dr. J. C. Phillips, in a carefully prepared article on the
autumn migration of the Canada Goose in Massachusetts,!
computes the width of the coast autumnal flight at thirty-six
miles, and the number of birds passing in this belt at thirty-
four thousand three hundred and forty. The direction of the
flight here seems to parallel the coast between Boston and
Portland. He reckons the number of Geese shot at the vari-
ous shooting stands in Massachusetts at nineteen hundred
birds in 1908. This is not excessive shooting as compared
with the score of a club in Currituck Sound, N. C., where over
one thousand Geese were killed in the season of 1909-10.
Dr. A. S. Packard describes the decrease of Geese in
Labrador, where Captain French saw Geese in enormous
numbers in Old Man’s Bight. Packard twelve years later
(1890) did not see a Goose on the whole coast. The fact
that the Geese have been holding their own so well along the
Atlantic coast of Massachusetts for the past two decades may
perhaps be explained partly by the betterment of conditions
on one of their breeding grounds, the island of Anticosti in
the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Formerly the island, which is
about one hundred miles in length and larger than Long
Island, N. Y., was inhabited by squatters and wreckers, who
killed every Goose they could find during the breeding season.
This island has many swamps, ponds and marshes, with little
islands in them where Geese can breed nearly unmolested if
not troubled by man. For years it was owned by Meunier,
the French chocolate king, who evicted the squatters and
maintained a colony of his own servants at every accessible
landing or harbor. The island is now one vast protected
nursery for water-fowl, and Geese have increased greatly
there. The Geese bred on this island appear to cross the
neck of the peninsula of Nova Scotia in their southward
migration, whence, in company with flocks from farther
1 Auk, 1910, pp. 267, 268.
180 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
north, they steer for the Massachusetts coast, usually cross-
ing Cape Cod or Plymouth County. These flights are some-
times deflected out of their course by the wind, and thus the
Goose shooting of Plymouth and Barnstable counties fluctuates
from year to year. Practically all the Geese which come
directly south across country to the Maine coast turn south-
west and join this flight, which goes down along the coast of
Massachusetts, and furnishes the Goose shooting of Essex,
Norfolk, Plymouth, Barnstable. Dukes and Nantucket coun-
ties. The increase of Geese on Anticosti for the last twenty
years probably accounts in part for the widespread _ belief
along our coast that Geese are not decreasing. The sports-
men of Massachusetts owe much to the Meunier family for
maintaining this great reservation for wild-fowl. It will be
interesting to see what the effect will be when in the course
of time this island passes into other hands. Another factor
in maintaining the numbers of the coast flight may be the
tendency of the birds to avoid danger in the interior by mov-
ing toward the coast. This would tend to decrease the interior
flight and increase the coastal migration.
Many speculations have been offered by writers regarding
the utility of the flock formation of this species. It is com-
monly held that the old gander, leading, breasts the air and
overcomes its resistance, carrying it along with him, thus
assuming the heaviest of the labor, and breaking, as it were,
a way, like the foremost man treading out a path in the snow
for his companions to follow, and those behind, each spreading
a little to the right or left of the one preceding, have an
easier task because of the work of the leader. The form of
the Goose flight has one obvious advantage. Every bird in
the flock, flying in a line parallel with the leader, can see what
lies ahead, as there is no other bird directly before him, and
this may be one reason why these wary birds almost always
assume their ‘‘ flying wedge” formation.
Geese evidently travel by well-known landmarks, and I
believe they are never lost except in thick weather. I have
known a flock to become utterly confused at night in a fog,
and to wander about over a city square for a long time before
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 18]
deciding where to go next. When Geese go south across the
country they seem to use some hill or mountain near the shore
for a landmark which they round, and then turn off and follow
the coast. I believe they rarely if ever intentionally travel
out of sight of land. Certain sea birds and shore birds can
cross the sea even in fog without any landmark to guide them,
but this seems to be beyond the power of Geese.
The autumnal migratory movements of this Goose seem to
have less of a southeasterly trend than those of many Ducks.
This species breeds throughout the northern parts of the
continent to the tree limit, and even beyond in Labrador,
where it nests on the arctic tundra. The flocks rush south
in autumn until they reach unfrozen waters. In the spring
they appear to follow the same route on their return.
The Canada Goose formerly nested in Massachusetts.
The earlier explorers state that they found Geese nesting on
islands along the coast. Samuels states that Wild Geese have
bred several times on Martha’s Vineyard and also near Lex-
ington, Mass. They normally breed in this latitude, but only
after they have attained the third year. The male does not
incubate, but stays by the female and with her defends the
nest against all assailants. The young are strong enough to
eat, walk and swim as soon as they have hatched, and dried
their plumage.
So much has been written about the habits of this bird
that more would be superfluous. They feed largely on vege-
table matter, the roots of rushes, weeds, grasses, etc., grass
and many seeds and berries, and swallow quantities of sand
as an aid to digestion. Geese feed either on shore, where they
pluck up grass and other vegetation, or they bring up food
from the bottom in shoal water by thrusting their heads and
necks down as they float on the surface. Like the Brant, they
feed on eelgrass (Zostera marina), which grows on the flats in
salt or brackish water, in tidal streams and marshy ponds.
Sometimes they are destructive to young grass and grain.
182 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
HUTCHINS’S GOOSE (Branta canadensis hutchinsi).
Common or local names: Little Gray Goose; Mud Goose; Short-necked Goose;
Southern Goose (?).
Length. — Averaging about 30 inches.
Adult and Young. — Almost exactly similar to the Canada Goose but much
smaller; occasionally a white spot on chin at base of bill and rarely a
white ring on neck just below the black; tail of fourteen to sixteen
feathers; the Canada Goose has eighteen to twenty.
Field Marks. — Like Canada Goose, but much smaller.
Notes. — Similar to those of Canada Goose.
Season. — A rare or casual migrant at the same time as Canada Goose.
Range. — Western North America, mainly. Breeds on Arctic coasts and
Islands from Alaska to northwestern coast of Hudson Bay and north to
latitude 70 degrees; winters from British Columbia, Nevada, Colorado
and Missouri south to Lower California, Texas and Louisiana; acci-
dental in Vera Cruz; rare migrant east of the Mississippi valley region,
but recorded on the Atlantic coast from Maine to Virginia.
History.
This is a smaller western race of the Canada Goose. It is
generally regarded as a mere straggler here, and there are no
definite records. It is not improbable, however, that it was
formerly irregularly common here in times when water-fowl
were generally plentiful. Dr. Brewer says that it was abun-
dant in Massachusetts in the winter of 1836-37. He states also,
in the Water Birds of North America, that at some seasons it
has been found not uncommon in the neighborhood of Boston,
and that numbers have been brought to market from Cape
Cod. As it is so similar to the Canada Goose, and associates
with it, it is no doubt usually regarded as merely a small
specimen of that species. Some eastern gunners distinguish
between the ‘‘long-necked Geese” and the “‘short-necked
Geese.’ Rich asserts that he examined four of these “short-
necked Geese,” of which three were undoubtedly Hutchins’s
Geese.!. Howe and Allen do not include it in their list of
Massachusetts birds. Since the first edition of this book was
written a specimen of Hutchins’s Goose was shot by Messrs.
Frank C. Drake and Irving A. Hall, at Nippinicket Pond,
Bridgewater, Mass., October 8, 1910.?
1 Rich, Walter H.: Feathered Game of the Northeast, 1907, p. 270.
2 Dyke, Arthur C.: Auk, 1912, p. 536.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 183
BRANT (Branta bernicla glaucogastra).
Length. — 23 to 26 inches.
Adult. — Head, neck and a little of fore part of body black; streaks of
white in a small patch on the side of upper neck; back and wings brown,
breast and flanks light ashy gray or brownish gray; belly white back
of legs; tail black; upper tail coverts white; bill, feet and claws black;
iris brown.
Field Marks. — Very small for a Goose; sooty black on head and neck,
with small but conspicuous white patch on neck which can be seen at
a distance with a glass. It flies in a more compact body than the Can-
ada Goose or in irregular formation, with seemingly no chosen leader.
Notes. — A guttural car-r-rup or r-r-r-ronk (Elliot). Ruk-ruk (Hapgood).
Season. — Abundant locally off the coast in migration, elsewhere rare or
uncommon; March to early May, sometimes later; early September
to early December. Some remain south of Cape Cod in winter, also
off Long Island, N. Y.
184 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Range. — Northern hemisphere. Breeds on arctic islands north of lati-
tude 74 degrees and west to about longitude 100 degrees, and on the
whole west coast of Greenland; winters on the Atlantic Coast from
Massachusetts south to North Carolina; rarely to Florida; has been
recorded in the interior from Manitoba, Ontario, Colorado, Nebraska,
Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and Louisiana; accidental in British
Columbia and Barbados.
History.
The Brant was formerly one of the most abundant of all
the sea-fowl. The early historians mention it among the
Geese which swarmed on the coast of Massachusetts when
the colony was first settled. It found rest and shelter in
every bay, harbor and estuary along our coast, where its
principal food, the eelgrass (Zostera marina), grows upon the
flats. The following notes from many authors will give some
idea of its former status: Rare in New Hampshire, but
in the Bay of Massachusetts found in great abundance
(Belknap, 1793). Early in October they are seen to arrive
about Ipswich, Cape Ann and Cape Cod in great numbers,
continuing to come until November, and in hazy weather
“they fly and diverge into bays and inlets” (Nuttall, Massa-
chusetts, 1834). Early in October they arrive in large num-
bers; flocks continue to follow each other in long succession,
and the gunners secure considerable numbers (Peabody,
Massachusetts, 1838). Appears in great numbers on the
coast of New York the first or second week in October; con-
tinues passing through until December (De Kay, 1844). In
spring and autumn very numerous on our coasts, exceeding
in number the Canada Geese and dusky Ducks (Giraud, Long
Island, N. Y., 1844). Abundant (Turnbull, Eastern Penn-
sylvania and New Jersey, 1869). Found on coast abun-
dantly (Samuels, New England, 1870). Common spring and
autumn on coast (Maynard, Massachusetts, 1870). Not un-
common spring and autumn (J. A. Allen, 1879). “In former
years were quite abundant at Montauk and in Gardiner’s
Bay on the west shore of Long Island, N. Y., and now they
are much more scarce” (Leffingwell, 1890). Formerly very
abundant along our eastern coast; have seen many large
flocks in the bays of Long Island, but the persistent shooting
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 185
has diminished their numbers (Huntington, 1893). There is
evidence that long before this time Geese and Brant had
decreased in those waters. Prime (1845) makes the follow-
ing statement in his history of Long Island. “Upon the re-
turn of cold weather, these [the wild-fowl] with the numerous
progeny which they have reared, return and bespeckle the
harbours and bays, which constantly resound with their
untiring cackle. There is reason, however, to believe that
some of these species, particularly the wild-goose, are greatly
diminished in number, from what they were formerly.
Many persons now living, can distinctly recollect the time
when, both spring and fall, the passage of large flocks of
geese over the island, at almost any point, was a matter of
daily, and sometimes hourly occurrence. But now, it is a
sight that is rarely witnessed. The same remark is applica-
ble to a smaller species of fowl, though larger than the duck,
commonly distinguished by the name of Brant. All the
larger kinds of wild fowl are evidently scarcer, than they were
formerly. The increased population of the country, and the
improved skill and implements of gunning, probably account
for the fact.” }
Old gunners have told me that Brant were very plenti-
ful all along our shores sixty to seventy-five years ago. Mr.
William C. Peterson, formerly of Marshfield, Mass., says that
about the year 1855, during a southeasterly storm in the fall,
myriads of Brant came in from seaward and flew up across
Plymouth beach to Duxbury Bay. He has never seen such a
flight since, but used to see more in fall than in spring. About
Thanksgiving time in 1872, or thereabouts, more than one
hundred big flocks came in during a storm; as near as he
could estimate there were about ten thousand birds. He has
not seen so large a flight since, and says they rarely see very
many there now. Mr. Elbridge Gerry, a respected citizen
of Stoneham, Mass, who hunted along the coast from 1835
to 1900, said (1904) that Brant were few of late years, even
at Chatham, as compared with their former numbers. Dr.
L. C. Jones of Malden says that Brant used to be common in
1 Prime, Nathaniel 8.: History of Long Island, 1845, Part 1, p. 21.
186 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
fall, flying at the same time with the Scoters. Now they are
uncommon where he shoots. He saw a flock of about fifty
at Sandwich in the fall of 1907, and a small flock in 1908.
Daniel Giraud Elliot, author of standard works on wild-
fowl, shore birds and game birds, who has had perhaps as
long and varied experience with the wild-fowl as any man
now living, says (1898) that constant warfare against the
Brant has greatly depleted their numbers, and in many places
where they were once numerous they are now seen in small
bodies or are absent altogether.
Comparatively few observers reported to me in 1908 on
the Brant, as it is commonly seen in but few localities.
Fifteen noted the species as increasing in numbers and forty-
one reported it as decreasing. Thirteen of the fifteen reports
of increase came from Barnstable County. The reports
point to the well-known fact that on the New England coast
the Brant has concentrated now at a few outlying points,
such as Chatham, Monomoy, Nantucket, Muskeget, and Peint
Judith. Many years ago they were abundant in the waters
about Cape Ann, in Boston harbor, on the south shore, in Buz-
zards Bay, and, in fact, all along our coast. They were for-
merly plentiful at Brant Point on Waquoit Bay.
_
_
we! | tl
mt OD CO bo Or
—
—
1 tet 0
This table indicates the remarkable quantity of animal
food consumed. One of the snakes was 73 inches in length,
the other 12 inches. Two hours after the Rail began to swal-
low this snake it was all stowed within. The bird never
appeared fully satisfied with the quantity of the food given
it except when it had killed and swallowed a snake.1
1 Cahn, Alvin R.: Notes on a Captive Virginia Rail, Auk, 1915, pp. 91-95.
210 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
SORA (Porzana carolina).
Common or local names: Rail-bird; Meadow Chicken; Chicken-bill; Carolina Rail.
Length. — 8 to 9 inches; bill .75.
Adult. — Top of head and back of neck olive brown; a blackish stripe
through the center of crown; back, wings and tail olive brown, streaked
with black and a little white; sides of head and neck, line over eye,
and breast ash gray; forehead, region about base of bill and a streak
down middle of throat and breast black; lower belly white; flanks
brown and grayish, barred with white and blackish; bill short, yellow.
Young. — Similar, but no black about bill or on throat, which is whitish;
breast washed with cinnamon; darker above than adult.
Field Marks. — Nearly as large as Bob-white, but slimmer; short yellow
bill distinguishes it from long-billed Virginia Rail.
Notes. — Kuk or peep; song, ker-wee; and a high, rolling whinny (Chap-
man). Ca-weep-cep, ca-weep-eep-eep-tp-ip-ip (Hatch). Also a variety
of other notes.
Nest. — Of grasses, on ground in marshes.
Eggs. — Fight to fifteen, buffy white or buff, sparsely spotted and speckled
with brown and purplish gray, 1.24 by .90.
Season. — Common to abundant migrant, and less common local summer
resident; early April to early November.
Range. — North America. Breeds from central British Columbia, southern
Mackenzie, central Keewatin and Gulf of St. Lawrence south to south-
ern California, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Illinois and New Jersey;
winters from northern California, Illinois and South Carolina through
the West Indies and Central America to Venezuela and Peru; acci-
dental in Bermuda, Greenland and England.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 211
History.
The Sora Rail inhabits the same localities as the Virginia
Rail, but it also frequents the salt or brackish marshes near
the mouths of rivers, and the bays and estuaries of the sea.
It resorts to these situations in such numbers in Connecticut
and the middle and southern States that gunners are enabled
to take advantage of its predicament when the tide rises,
and by pursuing it in boats they slaughter multitudes. The
high water drives the Rails to the highest points on the marsh,
and as the gunner in his skiff approaches they take wing.
Their flight is so slow and direct that a good shot rarely misses ~
one. Audubon states that he saw a gunner kill fifty Clapper
Rails without a miss, and he was assured that another had
killed one hundred “straight.”
Dr. Lewis gives a record of the bags of Sora Rails killed
by a few men on the Delaware River, below Philadelphia,
in 1846. The thirty-four records of consecutive days show
an average of about one hundred Rails per man per day.
He states that over one thousand Rails were brought into
Chester in one day. Dr. Brewer (1884) says that it is not
uncommon for an expert marksman to kill from one hundred
to one hundred and fifty Rails per day; and such scores were
made on the Connecticut River in Connecticut in olden times,
when there was no legal limit to the bag. This slaughter has
made some inroads on the numbers of the birds in Massa-
chusetts. Mr. Robert O. Morris writes that it is said that
about one thousand were killed at Longmeadow, near Spring-
field, in 1908.
Five Massachusetts correspondents report the species as
increasing in their localities, and forty note a decrease. Mr.
Morris is very positive that there has been a great and con-
tinuous decrease of Rails along the Connecticut River near
Springfield, and IT have noticed a similar diminution in fresh-
water meadows in eastern Massachusetts.
The Sora is inclined to nest in more watery portions of
the marsh or morass than the Virginia Rail. It is a good
swimmer and diver at need, and the young will take to the
212 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
rater as soon as they leave the egg-shell, if necessary to
escape danger. The little ones are black, with a tuft of yellow
feathers on the throat and a red protuberance at the upper
base of the bill. Although this bird has the reputation of
being very shy, I have come upon a single bird occasionally,
while canoeing, in August, running along the muddy margin
of a river or resting upon the bank. In such a situation it is
easy to go very close to the bird without alarming it. Some-
times its curiosity is so strong that a small flock will surround
a recumbent duck hunter and even peck at his clothing; but
a sudden movement is enough to send them scampering into
the reeds.
In September, when the wild rice is falling, these birds
gather in our marshes to feed upon it, and at that season a
stone thrown into the cat-tails or a paddle struck flat on the
surface of the water will often start a chorus of their cries.
I believe that individuals of this species have wonderful vocal
powers. One moonlit evening on the Concord River I was
entertained for more than an hour by a curious Jumble of
sounds from the marshy border of the river, that could be
attributed only to this Rail. Many of the notes were recog-
nizable as belonging to the Sora, but there were imitations of
the Flicker, the Bob-white and several other species. It was
a performance that would have done credit to many a bird
regarded as a songster. The next morning a search along the
river shore was carried on in vain, until finally, about 8 o’clock,
the song was heard again. I was able, by careful stalking, to
get within a few feet of the bird; but never saw it distinctly.
At the first appearance of my head above the greenery of the
shore the bird plunged in among the water plants, and I
have never seen it since or heard a similar song. This was
one of the unique experiences of a lifetime.
The Sora apparently possesses greater powers of flight than
most other Rails, as Dr. Brewer states that large flights have
landed in the Bermudas on southwest winds.
The food of this species apparently does not differ much
from that of the Virginia Rail, but it seems to feed more
largely on seeds and vegetation.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 218
YELLOW RAIL (Coturnicops noveboracensis).
Length. — 6 to 7.50 inches.
Adult. — Above streaked with blackish and brownish yellow, with fine cross
lines and bars of white; a dusky streak from bill across cheek to ear;
sides of head, neck and under parts pale brownish yellow, fading on
belly, with rows of darker marks on flanks and numerous narrow white
bars; bill yellow; legs and feet pale brownish yellow.
Field Marks.
Small size, yellowish color; the wing in flight shows much
white.
Notes. — An abrupt cackling, ’krek, “krek, “krek, krek, kik, “ke kh (Nuttall).
Kik-kik-kik-kik-queah, or, more rarely, Isike-eike-kike-hik-ktk-kik-kik-kik-ki-
queah (J. H. Ames).
Season. — A rare migrant, April and May, September to November; re-
corded in December and June.
Range. — Chiefly eastern North America. Breeds from southern Macken-
zie and southern Ungava south to Minnesota and Maine; winters in the
Gulf States, rarely in California, Illinois and North Carolina; casual in
Nevada, Utah and Bermuda.
History.
This little Rail is seen rather rarely in Massachusetts.
Nuttall (1834) says that according to a Mr. Ives the bird is
frequently found in marshes near Salem, Mass. I have met
with it alive only once, but have seen a considerable number
of specimens taken in Massachusetts, several of which were
killed by the Boston taxidermist, Mr. C. I. Goodale, in Wake-
field, Mass. It probably is more common in migration than
is believed generally, as it is very small and its habits are
214 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
secretive. As it was found nesting in Maine by Boardman, it
is not improbable that it may yet be known to breed in other
New England States. It is even more reluctant than the
other Rails to take wing; hence it is seen rarely, but is some-
times caught by dogs and cats. When forced to take wing it
flies in the same hesitating, fluttering manner as the other
Rails, but rather swifter and sometimes to a considerable
distance. It can swim and dive well in case of necessity.
A Rail which was not seen, but often heard, near Cam-
bridge, Mass., in 1889,' was believed to be the Black Rail.
This peculiar note was heard by Brewster and other orni-
thologists in Concord, Sudbury, Falmouth and other localities
at dates between 1889 and 1901, and the bird was believed to
have bred in Cambridge in 1889. It was locally known as the
“kicker,” and, according to Brewster, it commonly cried kik,
kik, kik, quéeah; kik-kik-kik-ki-quéeah; kik-ki-ki-ki, ki-quéeah;
kic-kic, kic-kic, kic-kic-ki-quéeah. This does not agree with the
notes given by Wayne, who actually saw and took both the
male and female Black Rail in South Carolina, and listened
to their cries for more than an hour. The notes given by Mr.
J. H. Ames for the Yellow Rail rather closely resemble those
credited to that ornithological mystery the “‘kicker.” As Mr.
Ames kept his Rail alive and saw it utter its notes, he cannot
well be mistaken.
Wayne states that in South Carolina he found it nearly
impossible to flush these birds with a dog when their only
cover was short dead grass. His dog caught nine and flushed
but one. Fresh-water snails were found in their stomachs.
1 Brewster, William: Auk, 1901, pp. 321-328.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 215
BLACK RAIL (Creciscus jamaicensis).
Common or local name: Little Black Rail.
Length. — About 5 inches.
Adult. — Head, chin, throat, fore and side neck, and lower parts dark slate
or dusky; head darkest on top and nape, where it meets the brown of
hind neck; back and hinder parts mainly rich brown; wings and tail
brownish black, marked with white; back, wings, belly, flanks, tail
coverts and tail barred with white.
Field Marks. — Smallest of all Rails and very dark; must not be confounded
with the young of other Rails, which also are small and black.
Notes. — Probably kik-hik-kik, quecah, or kik-ki-ki-li, ki, queeah, or vari-
ants (Brewster). Chi-chi-cro-croo-croo several times repeated in a sharp
high tone, audible to a considerable distance (Marsh). Female, Croo-
croo-croo-o repeated like the commencement of the song of the Yellow-
bellied Cuckoo; male, Kik-kih-kik-kil: or Kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk (Wayne).
Nest. — Of grasses, on ground in marsh.
Eggs. — Six to ten, 1.05 by .80, white speckled with rich reddish brown dots,
more numerous at large end.
Range. — Eastern North America. Breeds from southern Ontario and
Massachusetts south to Kansas, Illinois and South Carolina; winters
through the Gulf States and south to Jamaica and Guatemala; casual
in Bermuda.
History.
The Black Rail, the smallest Rail in America, is believed
to be a very rare bird in New England, where it has been
recorded only from Maine, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
216 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
It breeds rarely in Connecticut. So far as our present in-
formation goes, Massachusetts appears to be near the northern
limit of its breeding range on the Atlantic coast, but it may go
farther north. Eaton gives only five records of specimens
actually taken in New York, and six more have been reported
as seen at close range; but such records are received with
caution, as the black, downy, young of larger Rails are mis-
taken for Black Rails. Wayne appears to be the first observer
who has actually seen the female Black Rail on her nest in the
United States, and recorded it. The nest was in an oat field,
and the standing grain where the nest was had been cut. The
bird is so secretive that, as related by Wayne, two men and a
dog searched four hours for the male in the oat field before it
could be secured, although it was calling incessantly. This
bird may not be as rare as it is rated.
The Black Rail runs swiftly, like a mouse, through the
herbage, and seldom flies, although in migration it has reached
the Bermuda Islands. Gosse quotes a Mr. Robinson who says
that in Jamaica it is so foolish as to hide its head and cock up
its tail, thinking itself safe, when it is easily taken alive. The
Massachusetts records given by Howe and Allen follow: A
specimen was picked up dead in August, 1869, on Clark’s
Island in Plymouth harbor.!~ Another was found on the
streets of Boston, by D. T. Curtis, September 20, 1874.2 This
record may not be authentic. Mr. Curtis evidently did not
know the Rail, and he states that the bird was black and had
long yellow legs. It might have been the young of some other
Rail or Gallinule, as, so far as can be determined from the
article in Forest and Stream, no ornithologist saw it. It was
kept for a while and afterwards liberated. A pair was found
with young at Chatham in July, 1884, and a nest with eggs in
May, 1885.* Howe and Allen also quote Mr. Robert O. Morris
to the effect that the species bred in Hazardville, according to
J. H. Batty.4. The latter record, however, should be credited
to Connecticut, as Hazardville is near Enfield, Conn. A male
was taken by Mr. Stanley Cobb at Milton, May 16, 1904.
1 Purdie, H. A.: Bull. Nuttall Orn. Club, 1877, p. 22.
2 Curtis, D. T.: Forest and Stream, Apr. 5, 1877, Vol. VIII, p. 129.
3 Allen, J. A.: Revised List of the Birds of Mass., 1886, p. 236.
4 Morris, Robert O.: Birds of Springfield and Vicinity, 1901, Delos
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. AVE
PURPLE GALLINULE (Jonornis martinicus).
Length. — About 13.50 inches.
Adult. — Back bright shining olive green; wings deeper green, shaded with
blue; head, neck and breast rich bluish purple; belly darker; frontal
shield on forehead blue; under tail coverts white; bill carmine, tipped
with yellow; feet yellow.
Young. — Browner above; mostly white below; no red on bill.
Notes. — Resemble the delicate whistling of the Blue-winged Teal (Audubon).
Range. — Tropical and subtropical America. Breeds from Texas, Tennessee,
and South Carolina south to Ecuador and Paraguay; winters from
Texas, Louisiana and Florida southward; irregularly north in summer
to Arizona, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick; accidental in England and Bermuda.
History.
This elegant Gallinule is a wanderer from the south, and
probably straggles into all the New England States occasion-
ally. Col. Nicolas Pike states that it was ‘formerly very
218 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
plentiful” on Long Island, but is “slowly passing away,” and
that he has not seen one for many years.! He collected birds
on Long Island during the 30’s and 40’s of the last century.
Giraud (1848) rates it as extremely rare there in his day.
Eaton gives but three records of the species in New York, and
Knight gives but three definite records for Maine. Howe and
Allen give the following for Massachusetts: One was seen at
Stoneham, November 27, 1837.2 A specimen was taken at
Swampscott, by 5. Jillson, April 22, 1852.3 Another was ob-
tained from Cape Cod by William Brewster, in April, 1870.4
One was killed at Hummock Pond, Nantucket, in October,
1872.5 One was shot at Rockport by Robert Wendel, April
12, 1875.6 One was sent to Faneuil Hall Market, Boston, in
April, 1890, which had been caught in a trap.’ A female was
taken at Plymouth, April 9, 1892 (C. C. Wood).* One was
caught in June, 1897, at Boxford; “‘another, supposed to be
of the same species, and the mate were seen at the pond.’
Dr. Townsend gives the following additional records in his
Birds of Essex County: A male, now in the Peabody Academy
Collection, was taken at Saugus, May 10, 1875. A specimen
in possession of Mrs. W. S. Horner, at Georgetown, was taken
about 1891 at Byfield; reported by Mr. J. A. Farley.? One
was taken in West Newbury, in October, 1893, by J. W. Pray,
and is now in the Peabody Academy Collection.'°
This bird feeds on insects, worms, mollusks, snails and
other small aquatic animals, and on fruit, seeds and other
vegetable productions.
1 Dutcher, William: Auk, 1893, p. 272.
2 Peabody, W. B. O.: Report on the Ornithology of Mass., 1839, p. 258.
3 Putnam, F. W.: Proc. Essex Inst., 1856, Vol. 1, p. 224.
4 Baird, S. F., Brewer, T. M., and Ridgeway, R.: Water Birds, 1884, Vol. 1, p. 385.
5 Brewer, T. M.: Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., 1879, Vol. XX, p. 105.
6 Whitman, G. P.: Amer. Nat., October, 1875, Vol. LX., No. 10, p. 573.
7 Farley, J. A.: Auk, 1901, p. 190.
8 Ornithologist and Odlogist, May, 1892, Vol. XVII, No. 5, p. 72.
9 Auk, 1901, p. 398.
10 Townsend, C. W.: Memoirs of the Nuttall Orn. Club, the Birds of Essex County, Mass., No. 3,
p. 161.
BIRIDSsHUINTED FOR FOODROR SPORT 219
FLORIDA GALLINULE (Gallinula galeata).
Common or local names: Mud-hen; Red-billed Mud-hen; Water-chicken.
Length. — 13.50 inches.
Adult. — Head and neck blackish slate; body slate gray, brownish on the
back and washed on the belly with whitish; under tail coverts white;
bill and plate on forehead bright red, the former tipped with greenish
yellow; edge of wing and a stripe on flank white; toes not lobed.
Young. — Similar, but duller; whitish below; throat sometimes wholly white;
bill and forehead brownish.
Field Marks. —'The plate of bright red on front of head, the red bill and a
white stripe on flank (sometimes covered or wanting) distinguish it
from the Coot. Tail, when carried erect, shows a patch of white be-
neath it.
Notes. — Chuck, and many loud calls, suggesting a hen brooding or squawking.
Nest. — Like that of the Coot.
Eggs. — Fight to fourteen, 1.75 by 1.20, buff or brown, variable, spotted
with dark brown.
Season. — Rare migrant and local summer resident; late April to early
November.
Range. — Tropical and temperate America. Breeds from central California
Arizona, Nebraska, Minnesota, Ontario, New York and Vermont south
to Chile and Argentina, and in Bermuda; winters from southern Cali-
fornia, Arizona, Texas and Georgia southward; casual in Colorado,
Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Maine.
220 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
History.
The name Florida Gallinule is rather a misnomer for this
species, as it is a bird of temperate and tropical America
generally. Josselyn in his two voyages to New England (1672)
mentions Duckers or Moor-hens among the birds he found
here; and Brewster opines that, as Josselyn also mentions the
Coot, and as the Moor-hen of England closely resembles our
Florida Gallinule, there can be little or no question that he
referred to the latter. Peabody (1839) records a specimen
shot in Fresh Pond, Cambridge. Since 1891 birds of this
species have been seen frequently in Cambridge, one nest at
least has been found there, and the bird has been reported from
Nantucket, Norfolk, Essex, Worcester and Hampden coun-
ties, Mass. It is a fairly common summer resident in the larger
marshes of central and western New York, and in the Ontario
and St. Lawrence valleys, but apparently it is rather rare or
local near the coast of New England and in the Hudson and
Connecticut valleys. It seems to be rare now in New Eng-
land generally, except in some favored localities. In habits
and appearance, this Gallinule somewhat resembles the Coot.
It keeps well out of sight, usually among the reeds and cat-
tails, but at early morning and after sundown it sometimes
may be seen moving about in open water, where it swims and
dives well. This bird, like the Coot, is commonly known as the
Mud-hen or Water-hen, and many of the hen-like clucks and
calls that are heard in fresh marshes may be attributed to it.
Wayne says that the eggs of this species and those of the
preceding always are in different stages of incubation in the
nest, and that consequently the young are hatched and take
to the water while eggs still remain unhatched in the nest.
Some of the young from one nest, he says, are from seven to
twelve days older than others. Brewster has given in The
Auk an excellent account of this species and its nesting habits
in Massachusetts. !
The Florida Gallinule feeds mainly on aquatic insects and
other water animals, succulent water plants and seeds.
1 Brewster, William: Auk, 1891, pp. 1-7.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 22
COOT (Fulica americana).
Common or local names: White-billed Mud-hen; Mud-hen; Meadow-hen; Water-hen;
Marsh-hen; Pond-hen; Crow-bill; Pond-crow; Blue Peter; Sea-crow; Pelick;
Water-chicken.
Ss
ae i:
Length. — 14 to 16 inches.
Adult. — Head and neck blackish; body, wings and tail slaty, paler below;
wing when spread shows a narrow white edging; bill whitish marked
with two dark spots near tip; frontal shield brown; feet rather livid
or bright yellowish green, each toe with a broad membranous flap;
claws black; iris carmine.
Young. — Similar, but much lighter below; bill dull flesh color.
Field Marks. — The white bill; size of Teal or larger. Nearly uniform slate
color, and blackish head.
Notes. — A cuckoo-like call, coo-coo-coo-coo, the first note prolonged and on
a much higher key (Hatch). Also, at intervals, a squawk somewhat
resembling the quack of a duck, and other explosive and cackling
notes.
Nest. — A hollowed heap of dead reeds, sometimes in the water.
222 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Eggs. — Eight to sixteen, 1.75 to 2 by 1.20 to 1.35, glossy, clay color, spotted
and dotted with dark brown and neutral tints.
Season. — Uncommon migrant; early April to mid May, mid September to
December; a few breed.
Range. — North America. Breeds from central British Columbia, southern
Mackenzie, Manitoba, Quebec and New Brunswick south to northern
Lower California, Texas, Tennessee and New Jersey, and also in south-
ern Mexico, southern West Indies and Guatemala; winters from south-
ern British Columbia and Virginia south to Colombia; casual in Alaska,
Greenland, Labrador and Bermuda.
History.
This is not one of the birds commonly called Coots in New
England, which are really Seoters or Surf Ducks; neverthe-
less, it is the real Coot, — the only bird entitled to the name.
This species was formerly one of the most abundant water-
fowl on the fresh waters of North America. When Coots are
feeding on the wild celery or on the rice fields of the south
they are by no means despicable as a table delicacy; but ordi-
narily they are not considered fit to eat. Nevertheless, they
have been slaughtered without mercy. Audubon says that a
hunter on Lake Barataria killed eighty at one shot. It was
not uncommon in the old days in Florida to see a sportsman
shoot into a mass of Coots, killing and wounding from twenty
to forty birds, just to see the effect of the shot; not a bird was
even picked up. As the supply of wild-fowl was depleted, the
settlers began potting Coots for food in this manner wherever
these birds were numerous, and “fried Coot” soon became a
common dish on the settlers’ table. The demand for them
now has decreased their numbers until, where they were
formerly exceedingly abundant, they are now only common,
and where they were formerly common, as in southern New
England, they are becoming rare. Mr. Robert O. Morris
records the species as common at Springfield, Mass. (1901).
Dr. Glover M. Allen, in his list of the Aves (1909), gives it as
an uncommon migrant in Maine, New Hampshire and Ver-
mont; a rare spring and uncommon fall migrant in Massa-
chusetts; and a common migrant, mainly in fall, in Rhode
Island and Connecticut. It is, as he states, occasionally
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 223
seen in summer in Massachusetts and Vermont, and may
breed. Reports from Massachusetts observers for an average
of about twenty-seven years, previous to 1909, representing
every county in the State, show apparently that ten observers
believe that this species has increased in their localities and
that sixty-seven believe that it has decreased. Six of the ten
who have seen an increase apparently are mistaken in the
name, and refer to the Surf Ducks or Scoters, which are
commonly known as Coots on our coast.
The Coot quite closely resembles the common or Florida
Gallinule, but has not the red bill of that species, and its feet
are lobed somewhat like those of the Grebes. Nevertheless,
it is not so distinctly formed for swimming as the Grebes; its
legs are rather long and placed well forward, and it seems to
be a sort of connecting link between the land birds and the
swimmers. It walks and runs on land as easily as a Rail, and
yet it spends much of its time on the water. The French
name, Poule D’eau, and the American name, Water-hen, give
the general impression regarding this species. It is a good
swimmer, but usually when swimming it moves its head for-
ward with each stroke, as a hen often hitches her head forward
when walking. It is a fine diver, and sometimes almost equals
the famous Canvas-back in diving for the roots of the wild
celery. It is fond of flooded meadows and savannas, sloughs,
swamps, morasses, and swamp-bordered ponds, where, when
danger threatens, it can flee to the shelter of the reeds or cat-
tails, where it is as much at home as a Rail or a Gallinule. It
is naturally a most innocent and unsuspicious bird. When
wading waist deep in the flooded lands of Florida, for want of
a more genteel method of Duck hunting, I often have been
amused at the unsophisticated and foolish expression of the
Coots which swam around me, often within easy gunshot,
hitching forward on the water as if anxious to see what kind
of an amphibious creature kept them company. In my boy-
hood I have seen ponds apparently entirely covered with a
black mass of these birds. A sudden alarm would cause a
tremendous uproar of flapping wings and splashing feet as the
members of the vast flock hastened to cover, but in a few
224 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
minutes all alarm was past, and they gradually covered the
surface of the pond again. The body of the Coot is narrow.
and can be compressed so that, like a Rail, the bird can pass
between reeds and the rigid stems of water plants, where a
Duck with its wide flat body could not go. It can wade
readily also in much deeper water than the Rails. It rises
heavily, with much flapping of wings and paddling of feet,
but when once well in the air it flies rather better than the
Rails, rarely going far, however, except when migrating.
The Coot feeds very largely on succulent vegetable matter
and seeds, as well as insects and other small forms of animal
life.
PHALAROPES.
The great order Limicole comprises what are commonly
called the shore birds, to distinguish them from the Ibises,
Storks, Herons, Cranes, Rails, ete., which are collectively
known as marsh birds. Such a distinction is merely arbitrary,
however, as some of the Limicole rarely are seen on shore or
marsh, and others commonly frequent the marsh.
In our present system of classification the Phal-
aropes (family Phalaropodidew) come first, for
their feet are lobed (Fig. 12), somewhat like
those of the Coot but not so broadly. The
membrane attached to the toes is sometimes
scalloped along the edge, and the tarsus (that
portion of the foot or so-called leg which con-
nects the toes with the next joint above) is flattened, like that
of the Grebes. They are small birds, with dense, Duck-like
plumage. In this family the female is much the larger and
handsomer, and does most of the wooing, while the male is
more modest and retiring, and is said to incubate the eggs
and rear the young. Two species migrate in numbers off the
New England coast, sometimes near shore, but usually many
miles from land, where they may be seen floating or swim-
ming like little Ducks, and feeding among floating sea-weed.
Fig. 12.— Foot of
Red Phalarope.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 225
RED PHALAROPE (Phalaropus fulicarius).
Common or local names: Bank-bird; Brown Bank-bird; Gulf-bird; Sea-goose;
Whale-bird.
SUMMER. WINTER.
Length. — 7.50 to 8.25 inches.
Adult Female in Summer. — Above mottled and striped with black and
pale brown or buff; chin, region all around base of bill, forehead, top
of head, nape and much of hind neck black; wing dark ash, with a
white patch; cheeks and space above eye to black crown white; bill
orange; sides and front of neck and other under parts reddish chestnut
or wine red; tail black, gray and buff; legs and feet yellow.
Adult Male. — Duller; white on cheek less pure and defined, and top of
head streaked with rufous or buff.
Fall and Winter Plumage. — Above mainly gray; head largely white; lower
parts white; wings more or less black and white; bill blackish.
Field Marks. — Kasily distinguished in breeding plumage, but in fall is
known by its dagger-shaped bill, deep at base and tapering to near tip.
The other species have slim bills.
Notes. — A musical clink, clink (Nelson).
Range. — Northern and southern hemispheres. In North America breeds
from northern Alaska, Melville Island and northern Ellesmere Land
south to mouth of the Yukon, northern Mackenzie, central Keewatin,
Hudson Strait and southern Greenland; winter home unknown, but
probably on the oceans, at least as far south as Falkland Islands; mi-
grates along both coasts of United States; casual in the interior south
to Colorado, Kansas, Illinois and Maryland.
History.
This species is probably a regular spring and fall migrant
off the coast of Massachusetts, but on account of its habit of
keeping well off shore it is noted only irregularly. It is called
226 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
the Brown Bank-bird by the fishermen, because of its color and
the fact that it is found on the fishing banks, miles from shore.
In 1831, while about sixty miles off Nantucket, Audubon
saw hundreds of this species feeding on a bank of floating
seaweed. This is its common habit off our coasts. When seen
on our shores it is common and sometimes abundant. It is
met with occasionally in the Connecticut valley. In May,
1892, a remarkable flight was seen at Cape Cod and Nan-
tucket.!
The flight of the Phalarope resembles that of the Red-
backed Sandpiper or the Sanderling. In winter plumage it
resembles the Sanderling, being quite white in appearance.
When it first appears in the spring it still retains its winter
plumage, but begins to assume the summer or red plumage in
May.
Sometimes this bird is seen just outside the surf, where it
flies to and fro alighting on any temporary smooth spot amid
the waves, and begins to feed. In such situations it is obliged
to rise on the wing often, to avoid the curling waves which
threaten to overwhelm it. Like the Northern Phalarope, it
sometimes spins around as on a pivot when in pursuit of food.
At such times the head and neck are carried erect to the fullest
extent:
Individuals of this species are taken sometimes about inland
lakes in New England. More commonly the flocks migrate
at sea at along distance from land. If the sea is calm they
rest upon the water, and sometimes prefer to escape from the
intruder by swimming rather than by flying. The habit of
rising often, flying about and alighting on the water to feed
is characteristic of these birds and distinguishes them from the
Sandpipers. Sometimes in the interior they get their food by
wading about in the shallow water.
Elliot says that in the northern seas it feeds on the “ani-
malculz’’ which form the food of the right whale, and so
it follows that the whalers give it the name of whale-bird,
because the presence of large numbers of these birds at sea
usually signifies that whales may be expected.
1 Mackay, George H.: Auk, 1892, pp. 294-298. See also Gerrit Miller, same page.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. DG
NORTHERN PHALAROPE (Lobipes lobatus).
Common or local names: Sea-goose; Mackerel Goose; Web-footed Peep; Bank-bird;
White Bank-bird; Sea-snipe; Whale-bird.
Length. —7 to about 8 inches; bill rather short (.80 to .88), very slender.
Adult Female in Breeding Plumage. — Above dark slaty gray streaked with
yellowish brown on back; small crescents above and below eye white;
wing dusky, marked with white; throat white; neck rich rust red or
chestnut nearly all round; below white, marked on sides with slaty
gray.
Adult Male in Breeding Plumage. — Similar but duller; more brown above;
less chestnut on neck, which is more or less streaked; forehead largely
white; crown marked with yellowish brown.
Adult Female and Male in Winter. — Forehead white; crown and other upper
parts mainly gray, streaked with white; hind neck grayish; sides of
head, throat and under parts white; a slate patch, surrounding the eye
and its incomplete white ring, extends back over ear.
Young. — Similar, but with more black and yellowish brown on back.
Field Marks. — Difficult to distinguish from the Red Phalarope in winter
plumage, but its bill is much more slender and needle-like.
Notes. — A low, chippering, clicking note (Chapman). A sharp metallic
tweet or twick (Elliot).
Season. — Irregularly common migrant off shore spring and fall; April and
May and August to November.
Range. — Northern and southern hemispheres. In North America breeds
from northern Alaska, Melville Island and central Greenland south to
Aleutian Islands (including Near Islands), valley of the Upper Yukon,
northern Mackenzie, central Keewatin, southern James Bay and north-
ern Ungava; winter home unknown, but probably the oceans south of
the equator; in migration occurs nearly throughout the United States
and in Mexico, Central America, Bermuda and Hawaii.
228 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
History.
The Northern Phalarope is the most numerous of the Phal-
aropes seen in autumn off our coast, but seldom comes ashore in
any numbers, though it is not rare on occasion in some of the lakes
and rivers of the interior when driven by storms to alight there.
On May 21, 1894, Mr. C. J. Smith, one of the drawtenders
at the Craigie bridge over the Charles River between Boston
and Cambridge, brought three freshly killed North-
ern Phalaropes to Mr. M. Abbott Frazar, the Bos-
ton taxidermist. ‘These birds were in full breeding
plumage. Mr. Smith stated that on the day pre-
vious to his visit fully one thousand of these birds
Fic. 18,—Foo, Were SWimming in the Charles River between the
one Craigie and the West Boston bridges. The weather
‘was very foggy and the birds stayed until noon,
when they flew away seaward (Brewster).
This bird is in full plumage probably for less than two
months in the summer, and usually is seen off our coasts,
sometimes in company with the Red Phalarope, feeding on
floating seaweed. I have seen numbers of this beautiful
species off the coast of British Columbia. When driven by
storms at sea, or lost in the fog, it takes refuge sometimes in
shallow ponds. It has a habit of spinning round in a circle.
Chapman, who has observed it, says that it gives a rotary
motion to the water that brings to the surface small forms of
aquatic life, which the bird seizes, darting its bill into the
water two or three times with each revolution.
Northern Phalaropes fly rapidly and often erratically, like
the Wilson’s Snipe. On the water they rest as lightly as a
gull, and swim about alertly, with quick motions of the head,
but are unsuspicious and easily approached.
Dr. Townsend gives some records made by Mr. A. F. Tarr,
the head keeper of Cape Ann lights, the twin lighthouses on
Thatcher’s Island. Among them it is stated that on the night
of September 2, 1899, an immense flock dashed against the
light. One man picked up eight hundred dead, and Mr.
Tarr estimated that one thousand were destroyed.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 229
WILSON’S PHALAROPE (Steganopus tricolor).
SUMMER. WINTER.
Length. — 8.25 to 9.50 inches.
Adult Female in Spring. — Above dark ashy gray, paler on the crown and
rump and whitening on back of neck; throat, cheeks, line over eye
and small crescent below it white; a dusky stripe from bill through and
below eye, becoming black behind and extending down side of upper
neck, where it changes to chestnut or dark wine red, widening there
and extending down over side of neck, shoulders and back; a similar
chestnut stripe below it just above wing; wings grayish brown; outer
feathers (primaries) dusky; below white, the fore neck and_ breast
tinged with pale chestnut, the latter slightly clouded on sides; bill
long, slender, acute and black; legs, feet and iris dark.
Adult Male. — Similar, but smaller, duller, paler and not so strikingly
marked; less black, light ash, white and chestnut; back and wings
mainly brown, streaked with black.
Adult and Young in Fall. — General tone of plumage like that of the fall
Sanderling; light ashy gray above, darkening on wings and tail; occa-
sionally a few blackish feathers; upper tail coverts white; sides of head
and neck white, with a dusky line from eye changing to cloudiness on
sides of neck; below white; bill and eye dark; legs dull yellow. In
summer the young are brownish black above, which soon gives way to
fall plumage.
Notes. — A soft, trumpeting yna, yna (Chapman).
Season. — A rare transient in May, August, September and October.
Range. — North and South America. Breeds from central Washington,
Central Alberta and Lake Winnipeg south to eastern California and
northwestern Indiana; winters from central Chile and central Argen-
tina south to Falkland Islands; casual in migration on Pacific coast
from southern British Columbia to Lower California, and on Atlantic
coast from Maine to New Jersey,
230 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
History.
Wilson’s Phalarope is mainly an inland species, and always
was considered a very rare migrant on our coast. Audubon
records the capture of one near Boston, in the winter, but
does not give the date. One was taken by Mr. George O.
Welch at Nahant, on May 2, 1874, and is now in the collec-
tion of the Boston Society of Natural History."
Another was taken by Mackay, August 31, 1889,
on Nantucket.? I have seen several specimens
that were said to have been taken on the Mas-
sachusetts coast, but could not verify this.
This species has been taken in Maine, Rhode
Fria. 14.—Foot of Wil- Tsland, Connecticut and New York. (See
son’s Phalarope. .
Appendix A.)
This bird, when on land or wading in water, moves about
much in the manner of the Yellow-legs. It is more a wader
and less a swimmer than the other two, and keeps mainly to
the interior of the continent. Audubon killed several: speci-
mens near Lake Erie, and found their stomachs filled “with
small worms and fragments of very delicate shells.”
AVOCETS AND STILTS.
These birds comprise the singular family Recurvirostrida,
so named because of the peculiar, flattened, upturned beaks
of the Avocets. This is a small family in which the front toes
are webbed or partly webbed and the legs, particularly in the
Stilts, are exceedingly long and slender, but nevertheless the
birds are handsome and graceful. The Avocets have the body
flattened and the plumage thick and Duck-like.
The bills of Avocets seem to vary somewhat in form, if we
may judge from dried skins and the drawings of ornithologists.
Some have a clean upward curve; others have a slight double
curve, as is represented in the illustration of the Avocet on
the next page. Some Stilts have the bill nearly straight.
while others show a distinct upward curve. The birds of this
family have the feet more or less webbed, and swim well.
1 Baird, 8S. F., Brewer, T. M., and Ridgway, R.: Water Birds, 1884, Vol. I, p. 338.
2 Mackay, George H.: Auk, 1891, p. 120.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 23
AVOCET (Recurvirostra americana).
Length. — Very variable, 16 to 20 inches; front toes webbed.
Adult. — Back and most of wings black; remainder of plumage white,
excepting head and neck, which are mainly cinnamon brown in summer
and pale gray in winter, and tail, which is pearl gray; legs blue, much
of webs flesh color; bill black, long and upcurved; iris red or brown.
Young. — Similar to winter plumage of adult.
Notes. —A musical, loud pléé-éék, hurriedly repeated (Chapman). Click-
click-click (Brewer).
Range. — North America. Breeds from eastern Oregon, central Alberta
and southern Manitoba (rarely north to Great Slave Lake) south to
southern California, southern New Mexico, northwestern Texas, north-
ern Lowa and central Wisconsin; winters from southern California and
southern Texas to southern Guatemala; casual from Ontario and New
Brunswick to Florida and the West Indies, but rare east of Mississippi
River.
History.
In the first years of the nineteenth century the Avocet was
not uncommon on the Atlantic coast, where Wilson found it
breeding in small numbers as far north at least as the salt
marshes of New Jersey. Turnbull (1868) says that George
Ord informed him that during his excursions to the coast with
232 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Alexander Wilson, the Avocet, Stilt and other waders, “‘ which
are becoming rare in our days were then quite plentiful.”
De Kay (1844) rates the Avocet as quite rare in New York
State, and it is probable that it was never very common in
New England, although it has been recorded north to the
Bay of Fundy. Its large size, confiding nature and striking
plumage made it a shining mark for the gunner, and it has
long since disappeared as a breeder on the Atlantic coast, and
now is regarded in New England as a rare straggler from the
west. Two are said to have been taken years ago on the
Lynn marshes.!. One was taken at Lake Cochituate, Natick,
October 19, 1880.2 Three were shot at Ipswich, September
13, 1896, by Mr. A. B. Clark.? An adult female was taken
May 23, 1887, doubtless on the Salisbury marshes. The skin
was made up by Mr. Benjamin F. Damsell, and is now in the
collection of the Boston Society of Natural History.*| There is
one Maine record (Knight, 1878), and one for Connecticut (Mer-
riam, 1871). There are some museum specimens credited to
New York, and one definite record.
Ni) AN pa
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var = Ye, — pees
At
AV A yt a
PLATE Xl.—THE HEATH HEN.
Once abundant in southern New England, New York and the Middle States ;
now extinct, except on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. Upyer
figure, female. Middle figure, male, tooting. Lower figure, male,
strutting.
(Drawn by W. |. Beecroft. From photographs of the living birds taken by
Dr. George W. Field.)
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 385
HEATH HEN (Tympanuchus cupido).
Length. — About 18 inches; legs feathered to toes.
Adult Male. — Above light reddish brown, barred with black and_ buff;
under parts rusty white, barred with brown; chin, throat, cheeks and
line over eye buffy; sides of neck with tufts of less than ten stiff, rather
long black feathers, obtusely pointed; tail grayish brown, without
bars, except a whitish tip; large orange air sacs on each side of neck
and a small orange comb over each eye.
Adult Female.
brown.
Field Marks. — Size of Ruffed Grouse, with shorter tail, and plumage gen-
erally barred.
Similar, neck tufts shorter; tail barred with buff or light
Notes. — Male, a peculiar toot, repeated, resembling the whistle of a distant
tugboat in a fog; a laughing cackle given in the mating season; a peculiar
short crow and a startled clucking when alarmed (Field). Female, a
hen-like cluck and a low call, resembling that of a hen calling her young.
Nest. — On ground.
Eggs.
Drab, unmarked, about 1.65 by 1.35.
Season. — Resident the entire year.
Range. — Island of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.; formerly, suitable portions
of southern New England, New York and the middle States.
HIstTory.
The eastern Pinnated Grouse or Heath Hen formerly was
distributed along the Atlantic seaboard from Cape Ann, Mass.,
to Virginia, and especially was abundant in suitable regions
in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Long Island, New York and
New Jersey. Belknap (1792) said that it was rare in New
Hampshire, and Audubon (1835) asserted that it was met with
in his day on Mt. Desert Island and near Mar’s Hill in Maine,
where it was confused with the Willow Grouse. I find no
other references to the species northward or eastward of Mas-
sachusetts. Many early American writers speak of this bird,
and it is designated by some of them as the “grous,” “phei-
sant,” ‘“Heathcocke” or “ Heath Hen.” Thomas Morton in his
New English Canaan (1632) says of the “pheisants” that they
are fo-med like the Pheasant Hen of England, and that they
are delicate meat, “yet we seldome bestowe a shoote at them.”
Wood in his New Englands Prospect (1629-34) says, ““Heath-
cockes and Partridges bee common; hee that is a husband,
386 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
and will be stirring betime, may kill halfe a dozen in a morn-
ing.” Nuttall (1834) states that according to Governor Win-
throp this Grouse formerly was so abundant on the bushy
plains in the neighborhood of Boston that laborers and servants
stipulated in agreements with their masters that they should
not have it “brought to table oftener than a few times in the
week.”
As the Heath Hen is not primarily a forest bird, the settle-
ment of the land and the clearing away of the forests favored
its increase, and had it been properly protected it might have
been plentiful now in southern New England; but this was
not to be. In early times it probably was confined mainly to
the more open lands along the coast and to the river valleys;
but the settlers cleared land and sowed grain and grass, thereby
adding largely to its feeding grounds and increasing the supply
of seeds and insects. This naturally would have increased
the numbers of the species; but it was pursued, trapped and
shot at all seasons; the young were destroyed by dogs and
‘ats, and thus the Heath Hens soon were reduced in numbers
and driven to dense thickets which hunters and dogs found it
difficult to penetrate. In such regions this Grouse persisted in
considerable numbers until the nineteenth century. It never
has been adequately protected by law until recent years, for,
although some States passed laws for its protection, such
laws rarely were enforced. Nuttall (1834) asserts that it is
still met with in New Jersey, Long Island, Martha’s Vineyard
and at Westford, Conn. Peabody (1839) states that it is
found in Massachusetts only on Martha’s Vineyard and one
small island near it, and the same year Lewis rated it as “very
rare and almost extinct in the northern and middle states;
but within a few years quite abundant in portions of Long
Island. . . .A few,” he says, “are still found on the Jersey
Plains,” and “every year we hear of the extermination of a
small pack.” Giraud states (1844) that on Long Island it is
very nearly if not quite extinct, and that occasionally it is
seen near Schooly’s Mountains, New Jersey, and in Pennsyl-
vania and Kentucky. According to William Dutcher the last
specimen recorded from New York was killed in the Comac
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 387
Hills in 1836. Turnbull (1869) says, “It is now very rare; a
few are still met with in Munroe and Northampton Counties,
Pa.; within the last year or two it has been found on the
Jersey plains.”
The Heath Hen seems to have been exterminated earlier in
the neighborhood of Boston than elsewhere; but Brewster quot-
ing notes of a conversation with Mrs. Eliza Cabot, states that
the assertion is made that Mrs. Cabot saw a “‘prairie grouse”
in Newton in her youth (probably about the beginning of the
nineteenth century), and another (on Cape Cod), after her
marriage (probably about 1812). Judd, in his history of Hadley,
quotes the statement of Levi Moody of Granby to the effect
that the Heath Hen had not been seen on the plains of Spring-
field for about fifty years. This would fix the date of its dis-
appearance from that part of the Connecticut valley at about
1812 or 1813. Dr. Timothy Dwight published the statement in
1821 that the Grouse was no longer common in New England.
Between that date and 1840 it disappeared from the mainland
of Massachusetts. Audubon (1835) quotes Mr. David Eckley,
who says that “‘fifteen or twenty years ago” it was common
to see as many Heath Hens in a day on Martha’s Vineyard
‘““as we now see in a week.” The Heath Hen was introduced
by the Forbes family on the island of Naushon, where it was
not native, and it soon disappeared. About 1888 Mr. E. H.
Thompson told me that he had seen the species in his early
days at Falmouth, on the mainland, and that his father killed
two, which were preserved and presented to Col. E. B. Stod-
dard of Worcester, Mass. Mr. William Brewster, however, be-
lieves that these birds were introduced Prairie Chickens. In
1876 Minot asserted that the Heath Hen was found no more
on Naushon and probably was extinct on Martha’s Vineyard.
Subsequent inquiry proved that it was still extant. In 1877
foxes and raccoons were introduced on the island and prob-
ably helped to reduce the numbers of the Heath Hen. Brewster
estimated in 1890 that there were from one hundred and
twenty to two hundred birds on Martha’s Vineyard left over
from the previous winter. Mr. C. E. Hoyle asserts that in
1892-93 men who had watched the birds closely stated that
388 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
they had decreased seventy-five per cent. during the previous
few years. Since then the species narrowly has escaped ex-
tinction. In 1894 a fire swept over practically all the breeding
grounds, and Mr. Hoyle states that in the fall of that year he
spent two weeks going over the ground, and found the skele-
tons of many birds destroyed in the fire; that where he had
started a hundred birds the previous fall, he failed to start
five. He says that in 1897 he again went over the ground with
a good bird dog and did not start a bird. Since then the foxes
and raccoons are believed to have been exterminated. In
1902 three specimens of the Prairie Chicken (Tympanuchus
americanus americanus) were liberated on Martha’s Vineyard,
but whether or not they survived is not known. A fire swept
over the breeding grounds in 1906 and very few birds were
reared that year; but, under protection, the birds have in-
creased slowly. On May 2, 1907, the Commissioners on Fish-
eries and Game could find only twenty-one birds on the island.
On January 11, 1908, the number was between forty-five and
sixty.
The exceptional conditions on the island, which have been
partly responsible for the preservation of the Heath Hen, are:
(1) its isolation, the island having no railroads and no trolley
line into the interior; (2) the ground inhabited mainly by the
Heath Hen is very sparsely settled; (3) wolves, foxes, raccoons,
lynxes and other natural enemies, except cats, are extirpated
or rare on the island, and a bounty is paid on bird Hawks
by the county commissioners; (4) the soil, vegetation and
cover are exactly suited to the bird; (5) the snowfall on the
island is light; (6) there is some local pride in preserving the
Heath Hen. It would thrive wherever such conditions existed
if it were undisturbed by poachers, but unfortunately as it
grew rarer its skins and eggs were sought by museums and
collectors, and this furnished an added incentive to the hunters,
a few of whom I am assured still shoot the birds wherever
they can find them regardless of law or any other consideration.
The history of legislation to protect the Heath Hen is
interesting. I have found no record of any laws or regulations
regarding it in any town or city, or in the Commonwealth
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 389
generally, until 1831, when it had become very rare if not
extinct on the mainland. Then the Legislature passed a special
act to protect it during the breeding season only, from March 1
to September 1, with a penalty of only two dollars. Under this
_act the Heath Hen had been nearly, or quite, exterminated
from the mainland, when in 1837 a close season of four years
was declared, with a penalty of two dollars and a forfeit of the
same sum to the landowner. This close season was extended
five years more in 1841, but these acts permitted any town
to suspend the law within its own limits by vote of any regularly
called town meeting. Some towns took advantage of this,
thus nullifying the law in the only towns where the birds still
existed. On May 6, 1842, for example, the Tisbury town
meeting voted to allow the townspeople (hunting without
dogs) to take, kill or sell Grouse or Heath Hens from December
1 to December 10. In 1844 the close season was extended for
five years more; but the birds evidently had decreased in their
last stronghold on Martha’s Vineyard, for on April 1, 1850,
the town of Tisbury voted to suspend the law so as to allow
hunting only on the “12th and 13th of November next.” In
1855 all protection was removed, but for five years the Heath
Hen existed without it. In 1860 it was protected again by law
at all times; but in 1870 the period of protection was limited to
five years. Thus, under periodical juggling of the statutes,
the species managed to exist, protected most of the time until
the year 1907, when Mr. John E. Howland of Vineyard Haven,
finding it in imminent danger of extinction, agitated the ques-
tion of establishing a Heath Hen reservation. Owing to the
cordial and energetic co-operation of Dr. George W. Field,
chairman of the Massachusetts Commission on Fisheries and
Game, a protector was located in the breeding grounds of the
birds. Dr. Field secured contributions from public-spirited
citizens for the purchase of land for a reservation. The towns
of Tisbury and West Tisbury contributed to the good work
and the sum of $2,420 was collected. A bill was introduced
into the Legislature by Representative Mayhew of Martha’s
Vineyard, placing under the control of the Commissioners on
Fisheries and Game such lands as might be leased, given or
390 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
otherwise acquired for the purpose, and authorizing the com-
missioners to take not more than one thousand acres in the
name of the Commonwealth. The bill was advocated by the
Audubon Societies and sportsmen’s organizations, and was
passed with an appropriation of two thousand dollars for
carrying out its provisions. The commissioners soon secured
sixteen hundred acres, by donation and purchase, which has
now (1911) been increased to over two thousand. Fire stops
were made, the birds were guarded carefully and fed, and by
the year 1909 they had increased in number to about two
hundred. They then began to wander over the island, en-
croaching on the farms of the different towns, and from that
time to the present their numbers have not increased much.
This check to their increase, I believe, is in part owing to a
large number of Marsh Hawks, which apparently were feeding
on the young in 1909; in part to poaching by law-breaking
gunners, and in part to both wild and domesticated house
cats, which are known to be very destructive to the young
Heath Hens.
The history of the Heath Hen in Massachusetts shows
clearly the ineffectiveness of partial and belated legislation,
and the effectiveness of the reservation plan, backed by law
enforcement, to save a species in imminent danger of extinc-
tion. If we expect to preserve the Heath Hen and increase its
numbers, however, we must do very much more than we have
yet done to that end. More wardens or gamekeepers must
be employed; other State reservations must be secured, and
the birds introduced and protected upon them until it becomes
possible to exchange birds between different localities and
thus add new vigor to the breeding stock. All the money
expended by the State authorities in rearing Pheasants and
other foreign game birds might far better have been used in
re-establishing this hardy native game bird in its original
haunts from Cape Cod to the Connecticut valley.
The Heath Hen belongs to this country. It has been fitted
by the natural selection of centuries to maintain itself abun-
dantly in southern New England. It is superior in every way
to any foreign game bird that we are likely to introduce.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 39]
As the forests are cut off and the land thus unfitted for the
Ruffed Grouse it becomes better fitted for the Heath Hen.
Why have we so long neglected the opportunity to propagate
and multiply this indigenous species? The survival of the
Heath Hen upon the island of Martha’s Vineyard, after it
has been extirpated elsewhere, leaves its fate in the hands of
the people of Massachusetts. Let us hope that they will accept
this trust and spare no pains to preserve this noble game bird
and restore it to its former range.
This eastern Grouse was not distinguished from the western
Pinnated Grouse or Prairie Chicken until 1885, when Brewster
described and named the eastern form from specimens taken
on Martha’s Vineyard. Some authors appear to regard the
Heath Hen as a woodland bird, but I have found it pre-
eminently a bird of almost treeless or bushy plains, although
it is seen occasionally in the woods. The experience of most
observers agree with my own. To-day on Martha’s Vineyard
it is mainly an inhabitant of open lands and shrubby growths.
It is not partial to heavy timber or pine coverts, such as the
Ruffed Grouse prefers, but frequents dry, sandy or gravelly
lands, covered by low-growing vegetation. It sometimes goes
to the more sheltered portions of the oak groves during late
autumn and in winter, after heavy snowfalls, for the sake of
the acorns that it finds there. The region which it now mainly
inhabits on Martha’s Vineyard (some forty square miles) has
been stripped of most of its timber by fire and the axe. This
tract is more or less surrounded by, and occasionally inter-
spersed with, farms or cleared lands. The soil is chiefly sandy
and dry, and generally rather level, with some low rolling hills
and low ridges. Oaks of several species, bayberry, dwarf
sumac and other shrubby vegetation (all more or less dwarfed)
are characteristic of its chosen haunts; and small pitch pines are
scattered over the plains. The Heath Hen formerly inhabited
somewhat similar “‘barrens” on Long Island and in New Jer-
sey. It also frequents grass fields and open cultivated lands.
It is an adept at concealment in such situations, and in case
of danger the members of a flock will squat so closely, with
heads and necks drawn in or stretched along the ground, that
392 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
it is almost impossible to distinguish them. In fall and winter
they gather into bands containing twenty-five or more birds.
In the fall of 1910 I saw a flock of more than fifty individuals.
When flushed they do not rise high, but often fly half a mile or
more, sometimes wheeling and quartering, until they have
chosen a place to alight. In flight the wings are beaten rapidly
and then set while the bird sails. This alternate fluttering
and sailing is continued somewhat after the fashion of the
flight of a Meadowlark. I am told by natives of the island
that individuals or flocks fly several miles, at times going from
one township to another, and that in winter they sometimes
alight and plume themselves on the roofs of isolated farm-
houses, as the Prairie Chicken was wont to do of old. In
early spring the males indulge in their peculiar antics. At
daybreak many males meet at certain places that they seem
to choose for their dancing grounds, where they run, Jump
and flop about, cackle, blow and toot until the sun gets high,
when they fly away. Sometimes two males engaged in this
performance run toward each other, dancing and blowing as
they go, but on approaching quite close they squat, and remain
motionless from two to five minutes. Sometimes they fight
a little, but usually expend most of their energy in puffing and
blowing, or ‘“‘tooting.”” The sound produced is described by
Dr. Field as like that made by the distant whistles of tugboats
in a fog, but all on the same pitch. Each call extends over a
period of two seconds. The bird first runs forward about
three feet, with short, mincing steps, and then sounds its call.
It raises its tail erect, spreads it, lowers its wings a trifle, leans
forward, erects the peculiar pinnates or “neck wings” above
its head in the form of a V, and inflates the peculiar orange-
colored air sacs on the neck to the size of a small orange (as
shown in the plate facing page 385). The tooting seems to be
produced by the inflation of the air sacs, after which the air
is expelled suddenly. Audubon, however, believed that the
sound was made by expelling the air, and he found that the
bird was unable to toot after these sacs had been punctured
by a pin. Another call, according to Dr. Field, resembles a
single syllable of the hoot of a Barred Owl.
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 393
The Hens build their nests on the plain among the scrub
oaks. The young leave the nest soon after they are hatched
and the mother broods them beneath her wings wherever
night overtakes them. During the heat of the day in warm
weather these birds appear to delight in “dusting” in the
sandy roads, in ploughed land or wherever they find dry earth.
All gallinaceous birds have this habit, but the Heath Hen
seems to be particularly addicted to it as a means of ridding
itself of vermin. So far as is known, however, the dust bath
seems to be the only bath that it takes, for it avoids water and
does not appear to drink or bathe in the brooks. Apparently
it gets water only from rain or dewdrops which it drinks from
the vegetation.
The food of the Heath Hen in summer consists largely of
insects, such as grasshoppers, crickets and beetles, also spiders
and worms; the leaves of low-growing plants, such as sorrel
and clover, and berries, including wild strawberries, blue-
berries and the partridge berry, of which it is very fond;
cranberries and their leaves, and the leaves of various other
plants; the seeds of weeds, grasses and other low-growing
plants, and acorns. In winter and early spring, acorns, buds,
green leaves, bayberries and sumac berries form a part of the
food. During severe winter weather it eats even the buds of
cone-bearing trees. Occasionally it does some injury to crops
of peas, and it sometimes attacks corn in the shock, and also
newly sown grain, but it is useful as an insect destroyer, seek-
ing freshly ploughed lands at morning and evening for the in-
sects and worms to be found there.
PIGEONS AND DOVES.
The Pigeons and Doves (family Columbid@) are represented
now in New England by but one species, and this, the Mourn-
ing Dove, is placed by Sharpe and other British authorities
in a separate family (Pertsteride), which includes the Ground
Doves and their allies. The general characteristics of the
Doves and Pigeons are well known, as exemplified in the
domesticated birds. The differences in plumage between our
394 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
only remaining wild species and the Passenger Pigeon (now
probably extinct), will be seen by comparing their descriptions,
and the figures on Plate XIX, facing page 460.
MOURNING DOVE (Zenaidura macroura carolinensis).
Common or local names: Turtle Dove; Wild Dove; ‘‘Wild Pigeon.”’
Length. — 11 to nearly 13 inches.
Adult Male. — Above mainly light grayish brown, shaded with olive and
turning to bluish on wings and tail, which show blue when spread;
forehead, sides of head and neck pale pinkish brown; sides of neck also
iridescent with reddish, golden and greenish reflections; hind head and
neck bluish; a black spot below ear and a few black spots on shoulder
and wing; tail, particularly middle feathers, elongated and rather
pointed, all except middle tail feathers bluish with a black subterminal
bar and a white tip; chin pale yellowish or whitish; breast pale reddish
brown, sometimes purplish, lightening to yellowish or whitish on belly
and under tail coverts; legs and feet coral red seamed with white.
Adult Female.
Young. — Similar to female, but tail shorter; feathers light-edged.
Similar, but smaller, duller and tail shorter.
Field Marks. — Much smaller than the Passenger Pigeon, but generally
mistaken for it; may be distinguished by the lighter and more brownish
tone of its plumage. The Passenger Pigeon is darker and more blue,
and the male has a redder breast; the black spot on the side of neck is
distinctive of the Mourning Dove and lacking in the Passenger Pigeon.
The Mourning Dove makes a whistling noise as it rises, which the
Pigeon never made.
Nest. — A frail platform of twigs or straws, usually at a moderate height,
in a tree, rarely on rocks, stumps or the ground.
Eggs. — Two, rarely three or four, white, usually about 1.08 by .80.
Season. — March to December; may winter sometimes in New York.
Range. — North America. Breeds chiefly in Sonoran and Lower Transition
zones from British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and
southern Nova Scotia south throughout the United States and Mexico,
and locally in Lower California and Guatemala; winters from southern
Oregon, southern Colorado, the Ohio valley and North Carolina to
Panama; casual in winter in middle States.
History.
The familiar pensive moan of the Mourning Dove has in
it a quality of sadness that is almost “akin to pain,” and yet
it is a soothing and attractive call, for it is the love note of
the male cooing to his mate. Happily it may be heard still in
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 395
the groves of New England, where the voice of the Passenger
Pigeon has so long been silent.
There is some evidence in old chronicles that the ‘‘Turtle
Dove” was once abundant in New England, but it is so fre-
quently confused with the Passenger Pigeon that nothing of
any value can be deduced from these old accounts. Even to-
day the same confusion regarding the two species exists in the
minds of the people, and the Mourning Dove is now known as
the “Wild Pigeon” in sections of southern New England.
Within my recollection this Dove has decreased in numbers in
many parts of Massachusetts. Fifty-nine of my correspond-
ents reported in 1908 that it had been decreasing for years,
but since the law protecting it at all times was passed in 1908,
it evidently has increased in a portion of the Connecticut valley
and on some parts of Cape Cod. Thirty-three observers noted
such an increase.
The Mourning Dove is somewhat widely, though rather
locally, distributed through southern New England and New
York, but is rare or wanting at elevations above one thousand
feet, and in the northern portions of the region. It is a social
species, assembling sometimes in large flocks, but I have
never seen more than twelve together in Massachusetts,
although others have been more fortunate. The Dove is quite
prolific though ordinarily it lays but two eggs in a set. It has
two or more broods, and eggs may be found in the nest from
May to September. The nest is so frail and so carelessly built
that it seems as though the slightest blow would scatter it. The
twittering or whistling sound that ‘this bird makes as it rises
from the ground appears to come from the wings; but once I
distinctly heard a Dove make this sound while sitting on a
branch with its wings motionless.
The Mourning Dove is fond of small grains, particularly of
buckwheat. It sometimes does some injury to newly sown
grain fields, but is very destructive to weed seeds. Eaton says
that he took several thousand seeds of foxtail or pigeon grass
from the crop of a Dove which he shot from a flock of thirty
which were flying from an oat field. He computes that the
members of this flock had just picked up about two quarts of
396 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
weed seeds from that field of oats, or elsewhere, for their after-
noon meal. It is evident that Doves feeding on the newly
sown fields may do more good by destroying weed seed than
harm by eating grain. Prof. F. E. L. Beal of the Biological
Survey reports that nine thousand two hundred seeds of
common weeds were found in the stomach and crop of a Mourn-
ing Dove; he found seven thousand five hundred seeds of the
yellow wood sorrel (Oxalis strictor) in another stomach and six
thousand four hundred seeds of barn grass in another. The
examination of the contents of two hundred and thirty-seven
stomachs showed over ninety-nine per cent. of vegetable food.
Small grains were found in one hundred and fifty of the stom-
achs, and constituted thirty-two per cent. of the food con-
tents; but three-fourths of this was waste grain picked up
from the ground after harvest, or from the roads or stock-
yards. The principal and almost constant diet is weed seed,
which constitutes sixty-four per cent. of the annual food
supply. These seeds vary in size from the largest to the most
minute; some are so small as to seem beneath the notice of so
large a bird as the Dove. This useful bird should be protected
at all times in New England.
Nore. — A specimen of the little Ground Dove (Columbigallina passerina
terrestris) was taken by Dr. George Bird Grinnell in October, 1862, near
New York City, and was identified by J. W. Audubon. Dr. Grinnell states
that he saw another in New York possibly twelve years later.! So far as I
am aware this southern species has never been noted in New England.
1 Raton, E. H.: Birds of New York, Memoir 12, New York State Museum, 1910, pp. 389, 390.
PART II.
HISTORY OF THE GAME BIRDS AND OTHER
BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT,
WHICH (HAVE, BEEN, DRIVEN OUT “OF
MASSACHUSETTS AND ADJACENT
STATES, OR EXTERMINATED,
SINCE THE SETTLEMENT
OF THE COUNTRY.
GOAN,
The: “Wii
“6 tgp
PLATE XIl.— GREAT AUK.
Once probably an abundant summer resident on the New England coast; now extinct.
PART Tl.
SPECIES EXTINCT ‘OR EXTIRPATED.
Those species of Massachusetts birds which formerly were
important as a source of food supply, and which have become
extinct since the settlement of the State, or which have been
extirpated within its borders since the Pilgrim fathers landed
at Plymouth, are of primary importance in a work of this
kind, because the history of their extirpation will throw light
on the dangers that menace all birds which are killed for food
or sport.
Naturalists regard a species as extinct only when it has dis-
appeared from the earth; but a bird may be extirpated or
rooted out from one State or country, while it still exists in
others. The history of the extinct species is here given first,
and that of the extirpated species follow.
EXTINCT SPECIES.
THE GREAT AUK (Plautus impennis).
Common or local names: Penguin, Wobble or Garefowl.
Length. — About 30 inches; wing, 6; tail, 3.
Adult. — Blackish above; large white patch before the eye; white wing-bar
along the tips of secondaries; sides of throat and neck dark brown;
rest of under parts white.
Eggs. — Laid on ground or rock. Pyriform-ovate; pale olive or buff,
marked with brown or black, in patterns like those of the Razor-billed
Auk; measuring about 3 by 5.
Season. — Formerly in Massachusetts waters throughout the vear.
Range. — In Europe, from the British Isles north to Iceland; in America,
from the southern part of the east coast of Greenland to northern
Florida.
History.
Very little is known about the migrations of this bird in
America. I have seen no record of the occurrence of the
species at sea beyond soundings; but if it passed in migration
400 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
from Greenland to Iceland, or from Greenland to the North
American continent, it must have crossed the open sea. It
may seem improbable that a flightless bird could swim in one
season from Labrador to Florida and back; but fish make
similar migrations, and the Auk was a faster swimmer than
the fish on which it fed. When we read that a boat propelled
by six oars was unable to overtake an Auk, and that the bird
finally escaped its would-be captors, the performance of this
long migration appears not improbable. It seems possible
also that the species may have had one or more breeding
places in Massachusetts. Birds bred here would not have
had to journey more than twelve hundred miles to reach north-
ern Florida.
The Great Auk was not a bird of the arctic regions.
There is no record of its occurrence within the arctic circle.
It is believed to have lived in Greenland at a time when the
climate there was much milder than it is to-day, but not
within the last three hundred years. It inhabited the tem-
perate zone. It probably never bred in any numbers on the
mainland of Europe. Being flightless, it was obliged to seek
outlying reef-environed islands, where it would not often be
endangered by man or predatory animals. It may have lived
in prehistoric times off the coast of Denmark, as its bones
have been found in Danish as well as in Scotch shell-mounds,
and one instance of the supposed occurrence of the living bird
in Denmark has been recorded.!
It is believed to have occurred in considerable numbers
about seaward portions of the British Isles, also; but it was
extirpated from Great Britain and the continent so long ago
that few records of its presence remain. Within a century
it frequented St. Kilda, possibly Shetland, Faroe, the three
Garefowl rocks off the southern coast of Iceland, and a few
other isolated isles. It suffered continual persecution on its
nesting grounds. The last specimen recorded at St. Kilda was
killed in 1821; and the last at Eldey, off Iceland, in 1844.
This may have been the last living Great Auk.
The history of the bird along the Atlantic coast of the
1 Grieve, Symington: The Great Auk or Garefowl, London, 1885, p. 27.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 40l
North American continent, so far as its relations to civilized
man were concerned, began in 1497 or 1498, when the adven-
turous French fishermen commenced fishing on the banks of
Newfoundland. Until that time the Auks, breeding as they
were on outlying reef-guarded islands, were comparatively
safe from man’s interference, for the Indians found a plentiful
supply of other birds along the coast, and did not often dare
the dangers of these remote and rocky islands in their frail
canoes; but the hardy fishermen, coming in from the sea,
immediately sought the bird islands for a supply of fresh eggs
and meat. At that time these birds were so plentiful that it
was unnecessary to provision the vessels, for the fleet could
secure all the fresh meat and eggs wanted, without visibly
affecting the supply.
The first available record of a breeding place of the
Great Auk in America is that given by Jacques Cartier (first
voyage to Newfoundland, 1534). He writes: ‘‘ Upon the 21
of May the winde being in the West, we hoised saile and
sailed toward North and by East from the cape of Buona
Vista until we came to the Island of Birds, which was
environed about with a banke of ice, but broken and crackt:
notwithstanding the sayd banke, our two boats went thither
to take in some birds, whereof there is such plenty, that
unlesse a man did see them, he would thinke it an incredible
thing: for albeit the Island (which containeth about a league
in circuit) be so full of them, that they seeme to have been
brought thither, and sowed for the nonce, yet are there an
hundred folde as many hovering about it as within; some of
the which are as big as jayes, blacke and white, with beaks
like unto crowes: they lie alwayes upon the sea; they cannot
flie very high, because their wings are so little, and no bigger
than halfe ones hand, yet they do flie as swiftly as any birds
of the aire levell to the water; they are also exceeding fat;
we named them Aponath. In lesse than halfe an houre we
filled two boats full of them, as if they had bene with stones:
so that besides them which we did eat fresh, every ship did
powder and salt five or sixe barrels full of them.’’! This evi-
1 Burrage, Henry S., ed.: Early English and French Voyages, Am. Hist. Asso., 1906, p. 5.
402 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
dently refers to the Great Auk, although there are some
discrepancies in the account, which may have been due in
part to lapse of memory and in part to the translator; a later
passage evidently refers to Murres, Razor-billed Auks and
Gannets. Funk Island, apparently the location referred to,
was probably the principal breeding place of the Great Auk
in America, situated some thirty miles off the northeast coast
of Newfoundland. Cartier also gives evidence of having met
with the Great Auk in large numbers, at the Bird Rocks in
the Gulf of St. Lawrence on May 25, 1534;! but there seems
to be no other record of the occurrence of this bird at those
islands. In 1535 he again called at Funk Island. In his
account he gives its latitude and longitude, and says: ‘* This
Island is so full of birds, that all might easily have bene
fraighted with them, and yet for the great number that there
is, it would not seeme that any were taken away. We, to
victuall ourselves, filled two boats of them.” ?
In 1536 Capt. Robert Hore records another ‘* Penguin
Island” to the southward of Newfoundland. From the course
steered from Cape Breton, the island must have been Penguin
Island, off Cape La Hume.?
Evidently the bird became known very early among the
fishermen and fowlers as the Penguin (French Pingouin). Pro-
fessor Newton says that he considers it probable that this
name might have been derived from Pinwing, a name until
recent years used in Newfoundland, and denoting a pinioned
or flightless bird. The name ‘“ Penguin” appears to have been
applied originally to the Great Auk, and later to the group
of birds in the southern hemisphere now known as Penguins.
There are several islands known as Penguin islands near
Newfoundland, one in particular off Cape Freels, on the
eastern coast.*
Anthonie Parkhurst, writing in 1578, speaks of ‘‘ one island
1 Burrage, Henry S., ed.: Early English and French Voyages, Am. Hist. Asso., 1906, p. 13.
2 Tbid., p. 38.
3 [bid., p. 107.
4In Hakluyt’s Voyages, third volume, there is a statement made by Sir George Peckham, in
his account of Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s voyage to Newfoundland, which gives credit to Madock
ap Owen Gwyneth for the discovery, and naming of ‘‘ Pengwin Island ’’ in ‘‘ the yeere of our Lord
God 1170.” If this is founded on fact, the Welshman long antedated Columbus, and the name
Penguin may be of Welsh origin.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 403
named Penguin where wee may drive them [Great Auks] on a
planke into our ship as many as shall lade her.”
Capt. Edward Haies, in his narrative of the ‘* Voyage of Sir
Humphrey Gilbert,” in 1583, states that the French fishermen
about Newfoundland carried little provisions, but depended
on the flesh of the ‘‘ Penguin,” which they salted.?
In 1593 Richard Fisher speaks of ** Pengwyns”’ seen at Cape
Breton during the “ Voyage of the ship called Marigold.’ ?
In Archer’s account of Gosnold’s voyage to Cape Cod, in
the spring and summer of 1602, ‘“‘ Penguins”’ are mentioned
as among the birds seen and taken. Penguins were seen south
of Cape Cod on the shoals between Monomoy and Nantucket.
Champlain, in 1604, found another island well stocked
with Great Auks, situated near the shore of the southwest end
of the peninsula of Nova Scotia, which seems to have been
overlooked by the historians of this bird.t. This was in May,
and possibly the birds may have bred there. These are evi-
dently the Tusket or Tousquet Islands, off Pubnico Head,
ten or twelve miles from where the wharves of Yarmouth are
now situated, and nearly in the latitude of Portland, Me.
This leads us to the statement of John Josselyn, who was
located at Black Point (Scarborough, near Portland, Me.).
He mentions the occurrence of the Great Auk, or **‘ Wobble,”
as he calls it, in the spring. His New England’s Rarities Dis-
covered was published in 1672.
During all this time the slaughter of the Auks went on at
all the islands frequented by them. At first they were killed
by the fishermen, — mainly for their flesh. Later, this great
and apparently inexhaustible source of food supply was used
as a bait to lure colonists to Newfoundland; and for years
the islands were visited by settlers, and the birds killed and
salted for winter use. It was in 1622 that Sir Richard Whit-
bourne published his oft-quoted dictum regarding the bird, —
that “God made the innocency of so poor a creature to
become an admirable instrument for the sustenation of man.”
1 Hakluyt’s Voyages, 1600, Vol. ITI, p. 133.
2 Tbid., pp. 143-161.
3 Tbid., pp. 191, 193.
4 Champlain, Samuel de: Voyages, Pub. Prince Soc., 1878, p. 13.
404 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Undoubtedly during this period the Great Auk was plenti-
ful about Newfoundland and off the shores of New England.
Professor Lucas, who reported at some length the history of this
bird, and procured quantities of its remains in 1887, says that
millions must have died on Funk Island.!. When they were
plentiful there, some of these millions must have passed along
our coast.
Steenstrup believes that this Auk probably occurred at
Cape Cod.’
It is perhaps a little more than seventy miles from Port-
land, where Josselyn probably saw the Great Auk, to Ipswich
Bay; and there Prof. F. W. Putnam states that great numbers
of the bones of the Great Auk have been found in the shell-
heaps of Ipswich and Plum Island, Mass. They were found
also at Marblehead.?
Miss Hardy points out that these shell-heaps were made
by the aborigines in spring and summer.’
Josselyn speaks of the “‘ Wobble” among the birds of New
England as an ill-shaped fowl, having no feathers in its
pinions, and unable to fly. He says that in spring they are
very fat or oily, and tells of his experience in roasting them
at that time. Audubon states that an old gunner residing at
Chelsea Beach (Revere) told him that he well remembered
the time when the Penguins were plentiful about Nahant and
some islands in the bay. This must have been some time after
1750.
J. Freeman, in a topographical description of the town of
Truro on Cape Cod (1794), gives the ‘‘ Penguin” as one of
the sea-fowl that were then “‘plenty on the shores and in the
payne. °
Grieve marks Cape Cod on his map as one of its breeding
places.
In arather careful search through Massachusetts historical
papers, I have found thus far but one other reference which
points toward the breeding of this bird in Massachusetts in
1 Lueas, F. A.: Report National Museum, Washington, 1888, pp. 493-529.
2 Videnskabelige Middelelser, 1855, Nos. 3-7, p. 96.
3 Putnam, F. W.: Amer. Nat., 1869, Vol. III, p. 540.
4 Hardy, Fanny P.: Auk, 1888, pp. 380-384.
5Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., Vol. III, 1st ser., p. 199.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 405
the early days, and that seems to have been overlooked
by ornithologists. Davis (1815) says in his History of Ware-
ham, Mass.: “Hog Island, so termed, and which is very
small, is appendant to this town. It may, perhaps be perti-
nent here to notice, that in early colonial annals, there appears
to have been several little islands in Manomet Bay, on the
Sandwich side, some of them, marsh islands, probably, within
its necks, thus denominated; Panoket (little land) Chup-
pateest, (coney island or neck) Squannequeest and Mashne;
while Unset and Quanset were little bays or coves on the
Wareham side. . . . It is but a mile across, from a part of the
Wareham shore, to Manomet River, on the back shore of Sand-
wich. That rivulet was visited by Gov. Bradford as early as
1622, to procure corn, and was the Pimesepoese of the natives.
This compound phrase signifies ‘provision rivulet.” What a
remarkable coincidence between the aboriginal name and the
colonial voyage! We do not assume this explanation without
substantial and tenable grounds. The first part of the phrase,
pime, is, in its uses, ‘food’, ‘provision; the latter, ‘little
river... . The shores of this secluded and pleasant little bay,
indented by many necks and inlets, and embosoming islands,
must have been the chosen haunt of aquatic birds. The waders
yet seek it, tracing up its marshy creeks. On the Sandwich
side was Penguin River, where that singular bird resorted, in
the breeding season, in great numbers. The manner in which
the natives took them was, to erect stakes, or a weir, across an
inlet, drive them into it, and when the tide receded, strike
them down with clubs. This bird, it is well known, dives at
a flash: hence its significant name, Wuttoowaganash, ‘ears’,
that is, they ‘hear quick.’ The English settlers, it seems,
without knowing the meaning of this name, have used and
transmitted the plural termination only, Wagans, which has
no meaning, but a plural merely. We shall seek this bird now,
at this spot, in vain; but it appears and is taken, now and
then, in the salt ponds, near Ellis’ tavern, Plymouth. The
name given this bird, with trifling addition, is a watch word,
or an alarm; as much as to say, hark! listen!””!
1 Davis, 8.: History of Wareham, 1815, Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV., 2d ser., pp. 289-292.
406 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
The method used here by the Indians to capture the Auks
seems to favor the hypothesis that the birds thus taken were
not breeders; otherwise, the Indians would have been able
to kill them with less trouble on their breeding grounds, unless,
indeed, the birds had Jearned by experience to nest close to
the water, so that they could reach it quickly at the least
alarm. It is possible that the weirs were built for fishing and
used incidentally to catch the Auks.
In the summer of 1868 Prof. Louis Agassiz, Prof. Jeffries
Wyman and Colonel Theodore Lyman examined the shell-
heaps in East Wareham, on the shore of which are the bays
referred to by Davis, and they found there the bones of the
Great Auk.!
Thus we have the best of evidence that the Great Auk was
found in summer at the head of Buzzards Bay, at the junction
of the Cape Cod peninsula with the mainland.
As some readers of this volume may not know the origin
of the shell-mounds along our coast, it may be well to explain
that they were made by the aborigines, some of whom camped,
during the warmer months of the year, at suitable places for
taking clams, oysters and other shell-fish, and thus in time
formed these mounds, which consisted mainly of the shells
of shell-fish, with bones and other remains of the native feasts,
mixed with ashes and charcoal from the fires, and various in-
destructible parts of utensils, ete., which had been thrown
broken upon the heap. The finding of the bones of the Great
Auk in these shell-heaps indicates that the birds were taken
during the warmer months, which constitute their breeding
season. The Auk evidently lived at sea or in the water most
of the time, except during the nesting time, and, no doubt,
slept on the waves. 00
2 Audubon, J. J.: Ornithological Biography, 1838, Vol. IV, p. 316.
410 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
to Funk Island and a witness of the destruction of the Great
Auks there. Mr. Carroll stated that the birds were very
numerous on Funk Island and were hunted for their feathers
about forty-five to fifty years before 1876, but that soon after
that time they were wholly exterminated. This would place
the extermination of the birds there in the decade between
1830 and 1840.?
Singular as it may seem, the destruction of these birds went
on so much faster in America than in Europe that the species
probably was extirpated first on this side of the Atlantic.
Mr. Ruthven Deane published in the American Naturalist
(Vol. VI, 1872, p. 368) the statement that a specimen of the
Great Auk was found in the vicinity of St. Augustine, Labra-
dor, in November, 1870; but Dr. Coues, in his Key to North
American Birds, says that there appears to be some question
respecting the character, date and disposition of this alleged
individual; and it seems very improbable that the species
lived down to 1870.
To-day there are about eighty mounted specimens of the
bird, and about seventy eggs, in the museums of the world.’
Little is known about the habits of the Great Auk. Toward
the last it was difficult to shoot, as it had learned to dive at
the flash of a gun. It seems to have been easily frightened
by noise, but not so much by what it saw; for Grieve tells us
that in 1812, near Orkney, one was enticed to a boat by hold-
ing out fish, and was killed with an oar. The Auk swam with
head lifted, but neck drawn in, ready to dive instantly at the
first alarm. Its notes were gurgles and harsh croaks. On its
island home it stood or rather sat erect, as its legs were far
back. It laid but one egg. It never defended its egg, but
bit fiercely when caught.
Its food is believed to have been mainly fish; but Fabri-
cius found, in the stomach of a young bird, rose root (Sedum
rhodoriola) and other littoral vegetation, but no fish. Rose
root grows in the crevices of sea cliffs. Grieve, however,
doubts whether the bird taken by Fabricius was of this species.
1 Allen, J. A.: Amer. Nat., 1876, Vol. X, p. 48.
2 Grieve, Symington: The Great Auk, supplementary note, 1897, p. 264.
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PLATE XIll.—LABRADOR DUCK.
igrant on the New England coa
Once am
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED All
LABRADOR DUCK (Camptorhynchus labradorius).
Common or local names: Pied Duck; Sand Shoal Duck; Skunk Duck.
Length. — 18 to nearly 20 inches.
Adult Male. — Head, neck, breast, scapulars and wings, except primaries,
white; long scapulars pearl gray; tertials black-edged; other parts of
body, stripe over crown, ring around neck, and primaries, black; bill
mainly black, with orange at base and along edges; iris reddish brown;
feet and legs grayish blue.
Adult Female. — Lower plumage ash gray, brown-spotted; upper parts
bluish gray; several secondaries and sides of forehead white.
Young Male. — Similar to female, but chin and throat and sometimes breast
white.
Season. — Formerly late fall, winter and early spring.
Range. — The Labrador Duck is believed to have been an inhabitant of
the Labrador coast. I have seen no records of its occurrence in the
Hudson Bay country or within the Arctic Circle; but according to
Audubon it migrated southward in winter to Chesapeake Bay.
History.
The Labrador Duck has a brief history, for very little is
known about it. It was first described by Gmelin (Syst.
INatiss, Volo Part 2spjoou)
It is supposed to have bred only along the Labrador coast,
and, although the evidence of its breeding there seems to
have been gathered mainly from settlers and Indians, some
color is given to their statements by the fact that it has not
been reported in summer from any other part of North
America. Nevertheless, there are no definite records.
John W. Audubon was shown deserted nests at Blane
Sablon, Labrador, that were said to be those of this species,
but he saw no birds.!
Professor Newton asserts that this bird, like the Eider
Duck, bred on rocky islets, and that it was commonly found
in summer about the mouth of the St. Lawrence and the
coast of Labrador until about 1842; but he does not state
where he obtained this information.’
Major King writes: ‘‘ The Pied Duck or Labrador Duck
1 Audubon, J. J.: The Birds of America, 1843, Vol. VI, p. 329.
2 Newton, Alfred: Dictionary of Birds, 1893-96, p. 221.
Al2 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
is common in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and breeds on its
northern shore, a short distance inland.” He says that the
bird derives its name from its Magpie-like plumage; that its
flesh is dry and fishy, and that as an addition to the bag it is
not worth shooting. All these statements would apply to the
Labrador Duck.’ As King had spent three years shooting
and fishing about the Gulf of St. Lawrence and in Canada
previous to 1866, when his book was published, and as he
evidently was familiar with the water-fowl, his statement
perhaps is entitled to as much credence as was that of the set-
tlers who showed Audubon the supposed nests of this Duck.
Dr. Coues, in his notes on the Ornithology of Labrador,
made in 1860, says: ‘‘I was informed that, though it was
rarely seen in summer, it is not an uncommon bird in Labra-
dor during the fall.”? This is the only intimation that I have
been able to find that this bird ever bred to the northward
of Labrador; but it is too indefinite to have much weight.
Audubon regarded the Labrador Duck as a very hardy
species, for 1t remained off the coasts of Maine and Massa-
chusetts during the winter and was unknown south of Chesa-
peake Bay. It must have migrated in some numbers to the
coast of Long Island and New York as late as the first half
of the nineteenth century, for DeKay (1844) says that it was
well known to the gunners on that coast, but that on the
coast of New Jersey it was ‘not very abundant.”*® But
Giraud, writing about the same time of Long Island, says:
‘With us it is rather rare.” ‘
Probably the Labrador Duck in its migrations was once
common along the New England coast. Morton, writing of
the birds noted by him in New England between 1622 and
1630, speaks of ‘‘ pide Ducks, gray Ducks and black Ducks in
ereate abundance.” *® It seems probable that some of the
“pide Ducks” were of this species, for this is the one Duck
that best merits the name of pied Duck, because of its being
1 King, W. Ross: The Sportsman and Naturalist in Canada, 1866, p. 235.
2 Coues, Elliott: Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., 1861, p. 239.
2 DeKay, James E.: Nat. Hist. of New York, Part I, Zodlogy, Ornithology, 1844, p. 326.
4 Giraud, J. P., Jr.: Birds of Long Island, 1844, p. 327.
5 Morton, Thomas: New English Canaan, Pub. Prince Soc., 1883, p. 190.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 4\3
marked ‘like a Magpie,” and it was so named by the earlier
writers and ornithologists. Morton lived at Merrymount,
now Wollaston, in Quincy, Mass., and shot wild-fowl about
Boston Bay. He probably found this bird common there in
his time, for, although considered a “sea-fowl,” it entered the
bays and tidal rivers along the coast. Audubon never saw
the bird alive. The specimens from which his drawings of
the species were made were shot by Daniel Webster at
Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., and are now in the collection of
the National Museum at Washington, D. C.
Freeman (1807) includes the Shoal Duck as one of the
species found on Martha’s Vineyard.
Dr. D. G. Elliot says that between 1860 and 1870 he saw
a considerable number of these birds, mostly females and
young males, in the New York markets, and that a full-
plumaged male was then exceedingly rare; but no one then
imagined that the species was approaching extinction.’
Maynard (1870) records the Labrador Duck as rare during
the winter on the Massachusetts coast.*
The extermination of this bird never has been satisfac-
torily accounted for; but Newton considered that the whole-
sale destruction of eggs and nesting birds on the Labrador
coast, as witnessed by Audubon, could have had no other
effect.*
If this bird’s breeding range was limited to the southern
and eastern coast of that peninsula, and if it bred, as is
stated by Newton, only on the small, rocky islands off the
coast, or, as King says, on the mainland near it, the whole-
sale slaughter that went on for many years by eggers, feather
hunters and Eskimos may have been a chief factor in its
extinction. Audubon’s story of the Labrador eggers, as pub-
lished in his Ornithological Biography, graphically exhibits
a terrible destruction among the sea birds of the Labrador
coast; but long before his time a forgotten yet still greater
slaughter of wild-fowl occurred on those coasts to supply the
1 Freeman, J.: A Description of Dukes County, Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., Vol. III, 2d ser., p. 54.
2 Elliot, D. G.: Wild Fowl of North America, 1898, pp. 172, 173.
3 Maynard, C. J.: Birds of Eastern Massachusetts, Appendix to Naturalists’ Guide, 1870, p. 148.
4|4 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
demand for feathers and eider-down for beds. Amos Otis,
in his Notes of Barnstable (Mass.) Families, says that Josiah
and Edward Child in early life went on “‘feather voyages.”
This must have been about 1750 to 1760, when vessels were
fitted out for the coast of Labrador for the express purpose
of collecting feathers and eider-down. Otis states a _ well-
known fact that at a certain season of the year (presumably
July or August) some species of wild-fowl shed a part of their
wing feathers and can fly little if at all. He asserts that
thousands of these birds congregated on barren islands on the
Labrador coast; the crews of vessels surrounded them, drove
them together and killed them with short clubs, or with
brooms made of stiff branches. ‘Millions of wild-fowl,”’ he
says, were thus destroyed, and a few years later their haunts
were so broken up by this wholesale slaughter and _ their
numbers were diminished so much that feather voyages became
unprofitable and were given up.! Feather hunting in the
breeding season is doubly destructive, because the helpless
young are hunted down as well as the old birds. The killing
of birds for their eggs, flesh and feathers has been continued
by fishermen and the natives of the Labrador coast ever since.
It seems probable that the only Ducks breeding in large
numbers on islands along the Labrador coast were Elders,
Labrador Ducks and possibly Scoters. The Labrador Duck
is believed to have been a maritime species, and its breeding
range appears to have been as restricted as that of the Great
Auk. If the Labrador Ducks were unable to fly in July they
probably were reduced greatly in numbers by the feather
hunters long before their existence was known to naturalists.
A somewhat similar case is that of the Great Cormorant
(Phalacrocorax perspicillatus), which became extinct in the
North Pacific somewhere about 1850, and which was formerly
abundant about Bering Island. It is said to have been
killed for food. Dr. C. W. Townsend informs us that the fisher-
men and Eskimos still wantonly destroy the nesting birds
on the Labrador coast in spring and summer; and the
same wholesale killing which has so reduced many other
1 Otis, Amos: Genealogical Notes of Barnstable County, 1885, Vol. I, p. 187.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 4l5
breeding species in that region, may have hastened the
extinction of the Labrador Duck.
When the Magdalen Islands were discovered, great herds
of walrus resorted there; but to-day the fact that the walrus
was once numerous in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is almost
forgotten. We do not know the cause of the extermination
of the species there, but practically, it is certain that it was
extirpated by man. The fact that the Labrador Duck was
well known to gunners, and was found in some numbers
in the markets, indicates that many were once shot along our
coasts. Col. Nicolas Pike relates that in November, 1844,
while paddling in his sneak boat covered with salt hay at the
south end of Plum Island, Ipswich Bay, he saw three of
these birds, two males and a female, feeding on a shoal spot
near a sand spit. He shot them all.! This indicates that the
birds were taken easily by an expert gunner.
Dr. Elliot says that no satisfactory explanation of the
extinction of the Labrador Duck can be given, and yet he
says, on the same page: ‘‘ While we marvel at the disappear-
ance of this bird from our fauna, similar or equally forcible
methods are at work, which in the process of time, and short
time too, will cause many another species of our water fowl
to vanish from our lakes and rivers, and along the coasts of
our continent. Robbing the nests for all manner of purposes,
from that of making the eggs an article of commerce to pos-
ing as specimens in cabinets, slaying the ducklings before
they are able to fly, and have no means of escape from the
butchers, together with the never-ceasing slaughter from the
moment the young are able to take wing and start on their
migration, at all times, in all seasons and in every place, until
the few remaining have returned to their summer home, all
combined, are yearly reducing their ranks with a fearful
rapidity, and speedily hastening the time when, so far as our
water fowl are concerned, the places that now know them,
and echo with their pleasant voices, shall know them no more
9
forever.” ?
1 Dutcher, William: Auk, 1891, p. 206.
2 Elliot, Daniel Giraud: The Wild Fowl of North America, 1898, p. 174.
Al6 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
This extract seems to indicate that Dr. Elliot looks upon
it as probable that man had much to do with the extinction
of this species. Positive proof of this, however, always will be
wanting, for the early history of the bird is unknown; but it
seems very probable that the extinction of the species was
due to the advent of the white man in North America.
The last Labrador Duck of which we have record died by
the hand of man near Long Island, New York, in 1875; and,
according to Dutcher’s excellent summary, there are but
forty-two preserved specimens recorded as still existing in
the museums and collections of the world.!
Very little is known about the habits of this bird. Giraud
says that it feeds on shell-fish, and Audubon says that a bird-
stuffer at Camden had many fine specimens which he said
were taken by baiting hooks with the common mussel. The
name Sand Shoal Duck indicates that the bird was partial to
such shoals, and was found feeding in the shallow water near
them.
ESKIMO CURLEW (Nuwmenius borealis).
Common name: Doe-bird; Dough-bird.
Length. — 12 to 14.50 inches; bill, about 2.10.
Adult. — General ground color, warm buff; upper parts streaked and mot-
tled with very dark brown or dusky, so much so that the back often
appears blackish; head and neck streaked, rather than mottled. The
effect of the distribution of the markings gives the sides of the head
and neck, and particularly the under parts, a much lighter appearance
than the back; the top of the head, however, is darker, and there is
a rather light line over the eye; no whitish stripe in center of crown.
Primaries or flight feathers plain, not spotted or barred; tail barred
with dusky brownish black; bill black; base of lower mandible pale
or yellowish; legs grayish blue.
Notes. — A soft, melodious whistle, bee, bee; a squeak like that of Wilson’s
Tern, but finer (Mackay); and a low, conversational chatter (Coues).
Season. — August to November.
Range. — Eastern North America and South America, breeding on the
Barren Grounds of northwestern Canada; wintering in Argentina and
Patagonia.
1 Dutcher, William: Auk, 1894, p. 176.
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SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. Al7
History.
The Eskimo Curlew is placed in the list of extinct species
to call attention to the fact that this bird, the flocks of which
resembled in appearance and numbers the multitudes of the
Passenger Pigeon, is now practically extinct. As in the case
of the Passenger Pigeon, it is not improbable that afew more
small flocks or single specimens may yet be seen or taken;
but it is too late to save the species. Its doom is sealed.
Most of the so-called ‘Dough-birds” taken in recent
years have proved to be Hudsonian Curlews, which have a
light stripe along the top of the crown. The Eskimo Curlew
may be distinguished at once by its unstriped dark crown, its
small size, unbarred primaries, and small, slender bill.
The history of this bird, so far
as it is known to us, began in the
eighteenth century. It was de-
scribed by Forster in 1772 (Philos.
Trans. Royal Soc., London, 1772,
Vol. LXII, pp. 411, 431); but sixty-
three years earlier Lawson (1709)
mentions three * sorts” of Curlews
that were found in “vast numbers” in Carolina, of which
this, possibly, was one; and Hearne (1795) spoke of two
species that were abundant about Hudson Bay (1769-72), the
smaller of which undoubtedly was this bird, although, follow-
ing Pennant, he gives the name ‘“ Eskimaux Curlew” to the
larger.
The Eskimo Curlew was unknown to Wilson. The bird
which he described as the “* Esquimaux Curlew” was the Hud-
sonian. The Eskimo Curlew was found breeding by Richard-
son at Point Lake in 1822,! and it bred abundantly in the
Barren Grounds. Its breeding range extended from Alaska to
Labrador. In the fall migration its swarming myriads massed
in Labrador, from there crossed the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
landed at Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and then put
out to sea, heading for South America. If southerly storms
Fic. 20.— Axillars and first primary of
Eskimo Curlew (after Cory).
1 Fauna Boreali-Americana, 1831, Vol. II, p. 378.
418 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
occurred during their migrations, great numbers landed on
the Bermuda Islands. Easterly storms brought similar flights
to the coast of New England, and less frequently, perhaps, to
the shores of the middle and southern States, where, ornithol-
ogists believe, they were rarely if ever as abundant as in
Massachusetts.
We know nothing definite of their migrations in the early
days of the colony, but since the beginning of the nineteenth
century comparatively few have been seen on our shores
in fair weather. Whether they kept at sea, resting on the
ocean when weary, or continued their flight until they reached
that great mass of floating weed called the Sargasso Sea,
where seafaring birds find food, we can only conjecture; but
in some way they reached the West Indies and later South
America, where they spread over the continent, sweeping on
even to Patagonia, thus coursing nearly the length of two
continents. Returning in spring, they were seen rarely if
ever on the Atlantic or its coasts; but they reappeared in
Texas and other gulf coast States in March and April, and
swarmed over the prairies and through the Mississippi valley
region, reaching the fur countries by the interior route.
They were accompanied in their migrations by the Golden
Plover. The name “‘ Dough-bird” applied to this Curlew is
an old one, antedating American ornithologists, and was used
to denote an extremely fat and delicious fowl. It was given
occasionally to species of similar habits, as the Godwits; but
the Eskimo Curlew is the true Dough-bird of New England.
Cape Cod and Nantucket often were overrun by Dough-
birds, and they landed in enormous numbers all along the
Massachusetts coast. The shores and islands of Boston har-
bor were favorite resorts. During the first years of the nine-
teenth century Noddle Island (now East Boston) was owned
by Mr. H. H. Williams, who often invited his friends there to
shoot; and Mr. William H. Sumner (1858) says that he has
seen “that kind of Plover called Dough-birds,” from their
superlative fatness, alight upon the island “fifty years ago”
in a northeast storm, in such large flocks and so weary that
it was “as difficult for them to fly as it is for seals to run.”
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 4|9
Mr. Williams told him, he asserts, that when the birds
arrived in this condition they were chased by men and boys,
who knocked them down with clubs as they attempted to
rise. If the August storm passed, and these birds did not
land on the island, very few would be seen in the markets
that year.!. Mr. Sumner says that these birds were so fat
that if shot when flying they burst open when they struck
the ground. It is well known that this was their condition
when they left Labrador.
We have some records of the immense flights of these
birds that appeared periodically on our coasts during the
early days of the last century, but we can only surmise what
was their abundance when the country was first settled. The
flights may have decreased in Massachusetts even before the
settlement of the west, and the beginning of the destructive
spring shooting there.
Audubon says that on July 29, 1833, while he was near
the harbor of Bras d’Or, Labrador, these Curlews came from
the north in such dense flocks as to remind him of the Pas-
senger Pigeon. Mr. E. W. Tucker (1838) writes that Curlews
in vast flocks were exceedingly abundant on the Labrador
coast.2. Dr. A. S. Packard was there in 1860, and notes a
flock which was perhaps a mile long and nearly as broad. He
describes the sum total of their distant notes as resembling
the wind whistling through the rigging of a ship. At times
it sounded like the jingling of many sleigh bells.
The Dough-birds continued so plentiful until long after
the middle of the nineteenth century that the fishermen of
Labrador and Newfoundland made a practice of salting them
down in barrels. A Newfoundland correspondent, quoted by
Hapgood in Forest and Stream, says that they reached that
island in millions that darkened the sky. ‘‘ Millions” of
these birds and Golden Plover arrived in the Magdalen
Islands in August and September. There they went to the
high beach to roost in such masses that on a dark night a
man armed with a lantern to dazzle their eyes and a stick to
1 Sumner, Wm. H.: History of East Boston, 1858, p. 53.
2 Tucker, E. W.: Five Months in Labrador and Newfoundland in 1838, 1839, p. 110.
420 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
strike them down could kill enormous numbers.! It is a well-
known fact that thousands of shore birds were killed on Cape
Cod by similar methods in early days.
Mr. W. J. Carrol quotes Mr. C. P. Berteau, who says that
he does not remember getting less than thirty or forty brace
of these birds in a two hours’ shoot when he was in Labrador;
and that the Hudson Bay Company’s store at Cartwright
sometimes had as many as two thousand birds, as a result of
a day’s shooting by twenty-five or thirty men.’
Up to the middle of the nineteenth century, and even
later, great flights of Eskimo Curlews continued to come to
Massachusetts. Old gunners say (1908) that, “sixty or
seventy years ago,’’ so many Dough-birds and Golden Plover
alighted on Nantucket that the inhabitants used all the shot
on the island, and had to stop shooting until more could be
obtained from the mainland.
The greatest flight within the memory of men now living
occurred on Nantucket, August 29, 1863, but it was composed
of much greater numbers of Golden Plover than of Curlews.
Hapgood describes a flight that occurred a few days later,
September 3, 1863, on Cape Cod, when a party of several
gunners killed two hundred and eighty-one Eskimo Curlews
and Golden Plover in a little over one day.’
Mr. Elbridge Gerry tells me that “about 1872” Dough-
birds came in a great flight to Cape Cod and Nantucket.
They ‘“ were everywhere,” and were killed in such numbers on
the Cape that the boys offered them for sale at six cents each.
Two market hunters killed three hundred dollars’ worth at
that time.
Mr. John M. Winslow of Nantucket states that in 1882 he
and Peter Folger of that town killed eighty-seven Dough-
birds there one morning, and there were probably five hun-
dred birds in the pasture where these were killed. Mr. Lewis
W. Hill writes that his grandfather, Mr. W. W. Webb, killed
about seventy at Cape Pogue, Martha’s Vineyard, about the
same time.
1 Hapgood, Warren: Forest and Stream Series, No. 1, Shore Birds, 1885, p. 17.
2 Carrol, W. J.: Forest and Stream, Vol. 74, March 5, 1910, p. 372.
3 Hapgood, Warren: Forest and Stream Series, No. 1, Shore Birds, 1885, pp. 22, 23.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 42\
The Rev. Herbert K. Job records a flight of Eskimo Cur-
lews and Golden Plover on Cape Cod, August 30, 1883, and
remarks (1905) that such a flight ‘‘ may never be seen again.” !
His words were prophetic. That was the last great flight that
landed on the Cape.
A “cloud” of them was seen on the Magdalen Islands in
1890.2. This was perhaps the last large flock of the Eskimo
Curlew that has been recorded in the east, although the fish-
ermen of Labrador reported smaller flights for a few years
longer.
The decrease of the Dough-birds in Massachusetts during
the last century may be explained in part by the continual
persecution that they suffered here. The arrival of these
birds was the signal for every gunner and market hunter on
the coast to get to work. The birds were rarely given any
rest. Nearly all that remained on our shores were shot, and
only those that kept moving had any chance for their lives.
As a consequence of this continual persecution, the birds
probably learned to avoid the New England coast; and most
of those that were driven to land by storms left the moment
the weather was favorable for a continuance of their flight.
Often they came in at night and went in the morning.
Peabody (1839) regarded the bird as “‘ sufficiently common
in Massachusetts,” and says that it is “valued as game;”
and Giraud (1844) says that it is seen every season in New
York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The
great flights about Boston disappeared early in the nineteenth
century. Sumner writes (1858): “‘ None are now to be seen
where once they were so abundant, and even the market
offers but few at fifty cents apiece.” Turnbull (1869) gives it
as a rather rare transient (eastern Pennsylvania and New
Jersey). C.J. Maynard (1870) says that it is not uncommon
in Massachusetts during migration. E. A. Samuels (1870)
states that it visits New England, but only in small numbers.
Dr. Elliott Coues (1874) states that it migrates through the
Missouri region in immense numbers in May; and that in
1! Job, Herbert K.: Wild Wings, 1905, pp. 207, 208.
2 Sanford, L. C., Bishop, L. B., and Van Dyke, T.8.: The Water-fowl Family, 1903, pp. 445,
446.
422 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Labrador it is seen in flocks of from three birds to three
thousand.
Dr. J. A. Allen (1879) considers it a common migrant
in Massachusetts. Gurdon Trumbull (1888) says that this
species appears on the more eastern uplands of Cape Cod
in August or September, ‘‘and if severe storms prevail, it
arrives in very large numbers.” This should have been writ-
ten in the past tense.
At first sight it may seem difficult to reconcile all these
statements with that of Sumner, made in 1858; but his asser-
tion referred mainly to Boston harbor, with the conditions of
which he was familiar, and Curlews were still fairly common
on less frequented parts of the coast long after the great
flocks had disappeared from the neighborhood of Boston. In
1888, however, Stearns and Coues considered it “singular”
that this species was not common in New England.
A diminution of the species was noticed next in the west.
The birds no longer came in their usual numbers. A warn-
ing note was sounded by Charles B. Cory (1896), who said:
“Tt is becoming less common every year.” This diminution
had been gradual and progressive for years, but attracted
little attention until it became rapid and marked. Mr. J. D.
Mitchell, who is familiar with southern Texas, writes: ‘‘ They
used to visit the prairies in immense flocks, but it has been
many years since I have seen a flock.’ Pressed for details,
he writes that his earliest recollections of these birds date
back to 1856. From that time to 1875 they came every
spring in immense flocks on the prairies; after that they dis-
appeared. In 1886 he saw several small flocks in Calhoun
County, and in 1905 he saw three birds feeding with four
Black-breasted Plover in Victoria County. These are his last
records. Mr. A. S. Eldredge says that this Curlew came
through the region about Lampasas, Tex., in 1890, in flocks
of fifteen or twenty. In 1902 he killed one bird, —the only
one that he saw. Prof. Geo. H. Beyer writes that the Eskimo
Curlew disappeared very gradually in Louisiana. The last
records he has for the species are March 17 and March 23,
1889. Prof. W. W. Cooke knows of no record of the species
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 423
in Oklahoma since the spring of 1884. Prof. Thomas J. Head-
lee sends me a copy of a letter from Mr. Richard H. Sullivan,
president of the Kansas Audubon Society, who has gathered
information from well-known and trustworthy informants,
who report as follows: Mr. James Howard of Wichita says
that the last time that these Curlews were killed there in any
numbers was in the springs of 1878 and 1879. A good many
were taken in 1878, but they were much reduced in 1879. They
decreased rapidly afterward, and were not seen in numbers in
the markets after 1878. Mr. Fred G. Smyth of Wichita says
that the Curlews disappeared rather rapidly, and that the last
bird was shot in the spring of 1902; this is corroborated by his
brother, Charles H. Smyth. Mr. Charles Payne, a naturalist,
says that there were still a few Eskimo Curlews in the markets
of Kansas in the early 90’s. All these gentlemen believe that
there are living Curlews still in western Kansas and Oklahoma,
but as no one has been able to secure a specimen of the Eskimo
Curlew for the museums, it is probable that the birds now seen
are Hudsonian Curlews. Prof. Myron H. Swenk states that
during the 60’s and 70’s this bird passed through Nebraska in
spring in immense flocks, and was known commonly as the
Prairie Pigeon, because of the resemblance of its flocks to
those of the Passenger Pigeon. This name also was applied to
the Golden Plover (see page 340). They were the victims of
tremendous slaughter. In eastern Nebraska they began
diminishing rapidly in the early 80’s, or even earlier, and
disappeared during that decade. There is not a specimen
recorded there for the past fifteen years. There are occasional
reports of the birds from western Nebraska, but no specimens
are forthcoming to substantiate them. ‘The indications are
that its decrease was gradual. Mr. Charles E. Holmes of
Providence, R. I., found the bird common locally in the hills of
central Nebraska, about forty miles south of Ainsworth, in
1889. It was noticeable that if one was wounded and cried
out, others came from all directions, until thirty or forty were
fluttering over their wounded companion. They were then
decreasing and many were killed by cowboys. In 1892 he
saw about six in the Bad Lands of South Dakota, and in 1893
424 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
he saw two there, — the last that he ever saw, although he
resided in South Dakota unti! recently. The reports of all my
correspondents in Kansas indicate that the bird has been rare
there for about thirty years, and has disappeared. In Missouri,
where the Curlew formerly flew in countless thousands, we
find it rated in 1907 as arare transient. A flock of one hundred
was reported in 1894; a flock of ten, in 1902; and none after-
wards.! Mr. Otto Widmann writes me that it was irregularly
common in the markets of St. Louis during the last two dec-
ades of the century. In Jowa the species disappeared grad-
ually, but rather suddenly at the last. The last record that
I have is that of a specimen taken at Burlington, April 5, 1893,
by Paul Bartsch. Cory (1902) says, in his Birds of Illinois
and Wisconsin, that the Eskimo Curlew may still occur during
the migrations, but is becoming very rare and apparently is
disappearing fast; also that it formerly was abundant, and as
late as 1895 was not uncommon in some localities. Dr. Walter
B. Barrows writes that there is no Michigan specimen extant
so far as he knows, and that the latest authentic record of the
taking of a specimen was at St. Clair flats in the spring of
1883. Prof. Lynds Jones says that the latest record of the
‘apture of the Eskimo Curlew in Ohio is September, 1878.
Prof. H. L. Ward says that this Curlew appears to have been
rare in Wisconsin for at least half of a century, and that he has
no recent record. Not one of my correspondents from Alberta,
Manitoba or western Canada ever has seen the bird alive,
as their experience in the country does not date back much
over ten years. All believe that it has disappeared. Mr. H.
P. Attwater saw flocks of small Curlews, which he believes
were of this species, near San Antonio, Tex., as late as the
year 1900. All these reports taken together seem to indicate
a gradual decrease of the species in the west, accelerated at the
last.
The fishermen of Labrador noted the change about 1886
or 1887. There the decrease was more rapid. Dr. Henry B.
Bigelow, who visited Labrador in 1900, was satisfied that the
bird was nearing extinction. He saw only five birds while
1 Widmann, Otto: A Preliminary Catalogue of the Birds of Missouri, 1907, p. 75.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 425
in Labrador during the month of September. He was told
by the settlers that the Curlews appeared in numbers until
about 1892, after which no large flocks were seen. Townsend
and Allen (1906) quote Captain Parsons to the effect that the
birds were abundant in Labrador until thirty years ago (1876).
He often shot a hundred before breakfast and the fishermen
killed them by thousands. There was, he said, a great and
sudden falling off in numbers about 1886. Mr. William Pye
at Cape Charles, Labrador, told a similar story, but placed
the sudden decrease at about 1891. Dr. W. T. Grenfell says
that they became scarce in Labrador in the 80’s, and that in
1892 he saw only two flocks of any size. In 1906 he heard
of a few dozens being killed, but did not see one.!
At last ornithologists awoke to the fact that one of the
most useful, valuable and highly esteemed game birds of
America was disappearing. For the last five years all my
correspondents who mention this species have reported it
as either extinct or nearly so. Preble says (1908): ‘* It has
become practically exterminated, although formerly enor-
mously abundant and fairly common up to 1890.” ?
Stone (1908) says: ‘* Now apparently almost extinct.” *
Mr. Harry Piers, curator of the Provincial Museum of
Halifax, Nova Scotia, writes me that during a period of close
observation of birds from 1888 to the present time he has
made but one record, a specimen in the Halifax market,
September 11, 1897, which apparently has been lost. He
has been unable to secure a specimen for the Provincial
Museum.
Ornithologists have found the bird rare or wanting every-
where in North America since 1900.
The diminution of this species on the Massachusetts coast
during the latter part of the nineteenth century may be seen
by the records furnished by Mr. George H. Mackay. These
refer in part to Cape Cod and in part to Nantucket, includ-
ing, in some years, the birds taken or seen on Martha’s Vine-
1 Townsend, C. W., and Allen, G. M.: Birds of Labrador, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol.
XX XIII, 1906-07, pp. 356, 357.
2 Preble, E. A.: North American Fauna, No. 27, Biol. Surv., U. S. Dept. Agr., 1908, p. 332.
3 Stone, Witmer: Birds of New Jersey, An. Rept., N. J. State Mus., 1908, p. 142.
426 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
yard and Tuckernuck Islands. These notes, condensed from
various numbers of the Auk, follow: —
1858 to 1861.—Some birds each] 1883. — A large flight, August 26.
year. 1884. — A few landed.
1862. — No birds. 1885. — Eight shot on Nantucket.
1863. — An immense flight. 1886. — A few landed.
1864. — No birds. 1887. — A few shot on Nantucket.
1865. — No birds. 1888. — A number landed; one shot.
1866. — A few; no flight. 1889. — A number landed September
1867. — No flight. 11, a few shot later.
1868. — A few; no flight. 1890. — Fifteen birds reported.
1869. — A few; no flight. 1891. — Small flocks seen on Nan-
1870. — A few scattering birds. tucket and ‘Tuckernuck.
1871. — No birds. 1892. — Ten birds killed on Nan-
1872. — Two flights; fifty birds seen | tucket and Tuckernuck,
in one flock on Nantucket. | eight in Prince Edward
1873. — Some birds. Island.
1874. — No birds. 1893. — One shot on Nantucket.
1875. — No birds on Nantucket, a| 1894. — No birds. One in Boston
few on Cape Cod. market.
1876. — Some birds. 1895. — No birds.
1877. — A flight; 300 birds seen. _ 1896. — None in markets, and none
1878. — Over 100 birds seen. | on Massachusetts coast.
1879. — No birds. 1897. — None killed; eight seen on
1880. — A few shot on Nantucket. Nantucket.
1881. — Some landed; fifty seen. 1898. — Two seen.
1882. — About twenty-five birds.
There has been much speculation regarding the cause of
its disappearance, and all sorts of reasons except the real one
are advanced by gunners. The usual explanations, that the
birds had “changed their line of flight,’ or that they “do
not come any more,” for various trivial local reasons, have
been put forward.
Dr. C. W. Townsend writes: ‘“ About fifteen years ago the
Curlews in Labrador rapidly diminished in numbers, and now
[1906] a dozen or two or none at all are seen in a season.
The fishermen there thought that the shooters were not to
blame for this, but that the birds had been poisoned by the
farmers in the west, because they ‘ troubled their cornfields.’ ”
This tale, no doubt, arose because of the fact that the western
farmers, years ago, poisoned blackbirds in their cornfields by
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 427
wholesale; but when were the Curlews ever known to eat
corn? Poisoned corn probably would not affect them.
There is no need to look for a probable cause for the
extermination of the Eskimo Curlew, — the cause is painfully
apparent. The bird was a great favorite with epicures; it
was exterminated by the market demand.
Trumbull (1888) says that as a table dainty he considers
it superior to all other birds, and that the gunners got from
seventy-five cents to a dollar apiece for them.! The price
had doubled within thirty years.
The extermination of this bird was foreshadowed by Mr.
George H. Mackay (Auk, 1897, p. 214), when, for some years,
it had been coming into the eastern markets by the ton in
barrels from the Mississippi valley in spring. Mr. Mackay
tersely asked, ‘‘ Are we not approaching the beginning of the
end?” In 1891 he wrote that spring shipments of Golden
Plover, Eskimo Curlews and Upland Plover to Boston markets
began “about four years ago”’ (1887), and had increased to
date. Two firms received at one shipment eight barrels of
Curlews and twelve barrels of Curlews and Golden Plover,
with twenty-five dozen Curlews and sixty dozen Plover to the
barrel. With such shipments going out of the west to many
firms in the great markets, the remark made by Mr. Mackay,
that, “‘ while we may not be able now to answer the question
are they fewer than formerly, we shall be ably fitted to do so
in a few years” (Auk, 1891, p. 24), was prophetic. The end is
here. The destruction of this bird was mainly due to unre-
stricted shooting, market hunting and shipment, particularly
during the spring migration in the United States. When the
Passenger Pigeon began to decrease rapidly in numbers, about
1880, the marketmen looked about for something to take its
place in the market in spring. They found a new supply in the
great quantities of Plover and Curlews in the Mississippi
valley at that season. Less than thirty years of this wholesale
slaughter in the west practically exterminated the Curlews.
They were shot largely for western markets at first; they
began to come into the eastern markets in numbers about
1 Trumbull, Gurdon: Names and Portraits of Birds, 1888, p. 203.
428 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
1886. According to Dr. C. W. Townsend they decreased
rapidly in Labrador from about 1886 to 1892. By 1894 they
were practically gone, although straggling parties were seen
for ten years afterward. The Golden Plover lasted longer,
and has been saved for the time being by the passage and
enforcement of better laws; but its turn will come, unless
conditions are improved.
There was, of course, some shooting of these birds in South
America; but the South Americans had not the population or
the market demand that we have here. The opening of the
great west to settlement, and the unrestricted slaughter that
followed, which destroyed first the bison and other large ani-
mals, then the Wild Turkey and the smaller game birds,
exterminated the Curlew as it did the Passenger Pigeon and
the Carolina Paroquet. The Curlew was one of the first to
go, because it was easy to kill and brought a high price, and
because it had practically no protection. The season was
open while the bird was here, and closed when it was out of
the country.
Prof. W. W. Cooke brings forward as a “simple explana-
tion” of the probable cause of the extinction of the Eskimo
Curlew the fact that its former winter home in Argentina and
its spring feeding grounds in Nebraska and South Dakota
have been settled and cultivated; but he does not explain why
this has not exterminated the Golden Plover, which had to
meet the same conditions in the same regions. The mere
settlement and cultivation of the feeding grounds would not
have exterminated the birds. It provided more food for them,
as both species were fond of insects and earthworms, which
are increased by cultivation, and both are known to have
gleaned worms and insects on ploughed land and cultivated
fields. Settlement and cultivation then would have tended to
increase their numbers, as it provided them with a greater food
supply. We must assume that Professor Cooke means to
assign the destruction of the species to the shooting, market
hunting and other adverse influences that always follow settle-
ment. Thousands of people can testify that these were the
destructive causes in the western States.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 429
It has been suggested that possibly toward the last some
great storm at sea may have hastened the end. No storm
ever blew that was far-reaching, severe or continuous enough
to have threatened the extinction of these birds when they
were numerous, and bred from Hudson Bay to Alaska, when
their flights passed down the Atlantic coast in August and
September, with stragglers continuing until after the middle
of November. Their numbers were too great, and they were
extended over too large a part of the earth’s surface, to be
swept out of existence at one fell stroke. There is no evi-
dence that this species ever was overwhelmed by any storm.
It seems to have been well fitted to cope with the elements at
sea. The species that are most exposed to storms on the
ocean are the two Phalaropes, which migrate almost entirely
at sea. By breeding mainly in high latitudes and keeping
mostly off shore in their migrations they have escaped the
gunner, and have held their own better than other birds of
this order. If storms at sea exterminated the Curlews, why
have they not destroyed the Phalaropes, which are far more
exposed to them, and the Golden Plover, which travelled
with the Curlews? There could have been no possibility of
the destruction of the Dough-bird by a storm until it was
reduced to a remnant of its former numbers, and driven by
inhospitable man to seek a refuge at sea. But if such a
catastrophe had happened, it would have made no difference
in the end. The bird was doomed. It was merely another
victim to man’s rapacity and greed, as all large shore birds
eventually must be, unless protected by law and public sen-
timent from their otherwise inevitable fate.
In addition to the notes given by Mr. Mackay, there are
a few more eastern records made within the last twenty
years: —
1890. — A flock of about twenty, at Eagle Hill, Ipswich, autumn; nearly
all killed by T. C. Wilson (C. W. Townsend, Birds of Essex County).
1890. — One shot by Alfred Swan at North Eastham, September 28; speci-
men preserved. Species seen or taken in New York State every year
from 1885 to 1891 except 1888 (E. H. Eaton, Birds of New York).
1893. — One seen at Ipswich by Walter Faxon (C. W. Townsend, Birds
of Essex County).
430 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
1895. — Two killed by William H. Spaulding at Chatham (N. A. Eldredge).
1896 (about). — Last record for New York State (E. H. Eaton, Birds of
New York).
1897. — August, one shot and eaten, Chatham Beach (Herbert K. Job).
1898. — Last seen at Dennis, Mass. (William N. Stone).
1899. — Three killed at Chatham Beach, Mass. (Chatham Beach Hotel
Shooting Record).
1899. — One female killed at Chatham, Mass., September 5 (in J. E.
Thayer collection).
1900. — One killed at Eastham (Rev. E. E. Phillips).
1900. — One killed at Chatham Beach, September 13 (Chatham Beach
Hotel Shooting Record).
1900. — One killed on an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence (Dr. L. C.
Sanford).
1901. — Last one killed on Prince Edward Island (KE. T. Carbonnell).
1901. — One shot at Ipswich (C. W. Townsend, Birds of Essex County).
1901. — One female shot by Louis A. Shaw, Pine Point, Me., September 23
(in J. E. Thayer collection).
1902. — Two obtained by Dr. L. C. Jones of Malden in Boston market in
October. One killed in Massachusetts; the other came in with some
western birds (in J. E. Thayer collection).
1902. — Dr. Jonathan Dwight, Jr., has the head of a specimen from Sable
Island believed to have been taken in 1902 (J. H. Fleming).
1906. — Male taken, Magdalen Islands (Stanley Cobb), September 6;
specimen preserved. (See also Auk, 1906, p. 459.)
1908. — Two said to have been killed by A. B. Thomas at Newburyport.
One of these now in J. E. Thayer collection (Auk, 1909, p. 77).
1909. —One taken at Hog Island, Hancock County, Me., September 2
(O. W. Knight). (Auk, 1910, p. 79.) Now in collection of the
University of Maine.
1909. — Another at Hog Island, September 14, by Ira M. Stanley
(Curator, C. S. Winch). Specimen preserved. (See Appendix A.)
As this goes to press, Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell writes that
the species has not been noted in Labrador for three or four
years.
The habits of the Eskimo Curlews were much like those
of the Golden Plover. They frequented the same localities,
often fed on the same food, and whenever large numbers of
the Curlews were seen in migration, flocks of Golden Plover
usually followed them. The Curlews were very strong and high
flyers, and it has been estimated that they ordinarily flew at
the rate of one hundred miles an hour, and at nearly twice
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 431
that speed with a high wind. These estimates were possibly
excessive. Nevertheless, this bird’s power of flight was so
great that it would not take long, under favorable conditions,
for it to cross the vast expanse of ocean lying between Labra-
dor and the lesser Antilles, which it visited in its southern
flight. This Curlew was able to rest on the sea, like the Golden
Plover or the Willet,! and it may have done so, as all shore birds
canswim. If it could travel with a fair wind even one hundred
miles an hour, it could go from Labrador to the lesser Antilles
or about two thousand miles, in twenty hours. It is improb-
able that it could make so quick a passage; but it seems
possible that it often arrived at the Antilles without landing
on the way.
Apparently a large part of the individuals of this species
concentrated in Labrador in August, although many went
south through the Mississippi valley region. Some of those
that bred in Alaska must have made a journey of more than
two thousand miles to reach the Labrador coast. As it is
about seven thousand miles from the shores of the Arctic
Ocean, where they bred, to Patagonia, where some of them
spent the winter, their wonderful annual flight over land
and sea must have covered at least fourteen thousand miles,
and if some individuals bred in Alaska they may have trav-
elled over sixteen thousand miles.
About the last week in August or sometimes a little earlier
the migration from Labrador began. As they rarely alighted
on the Massachusetts coast in great numbers except when
blown off their course by a storm, and as they were then
tired, wet and storm-beaten, they readily were approached
by the gunner. When driven to take wing by the death-
dealing charge, they started off swiftly; but, being of an
affectionate disposition, they often returned to their strug-
gling, wounded companions, and hovered solicitously over them
until another storm of shot again tore through their thinned
and broken ranks. They were decoyed easily by the gunner,
who could give a close imitation of their call. They were
much too innocent and confiding for their own good. As
1 Mackay, George H.: Auk, 1896, p. 90.
432 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
one old Prince Edward Island gunner remarked, ‘‘ They
would not go out of a field until they were all killed.” He
might have added, —and not even then, unless carried out.
In later years, on the Massachusetts coast, this species was
not always so tame; but most of those which remained for
any time upon these shores were gathered in by the gun-
ner sooner or later. In flight the smaller flocks sometimes
assumed a V-shaped formation, but the great flocks were
simply masses or extended lines. These flocks often per-
formed beautiful evolutions, swinging about as if at command,
sometimes in “open order,” again compactly massed. They
always appeared to follow some temporary leader; and Nel-
son says that the small flocks frequently were led by a single
Hudsonian Curlew, as small shore birds sometimes are pre-
ceded by one of a larger species, the little fellows seemingly
depending on its superior sagacity and watchfulness to» keep
them from danger. When driven in by a storm, the Eskimo
Curlews usually alighted facing the wind on the sheltered side
of a grassy hill or in the open field, sometimes on the beach
or jn the marsh; but they were attracted particularly by hill
pastures near the coast.
In Massachusetts their food consisted very largely of
terrestrial insects, beetles, grasshoppers, crickets and ants;
also earthworms. They were among the most useful of birds
in their migrations in the west, as they were very destructive
to the young of the Rocky Mountain locust, formerly the
scourge of the plains. Dr. Coues says that while feeding the
great flocks kept up a conversational chattering, like a flock
of Blackbirds. In Prince Edward Island they have been seen
following the furrow and searching for worms, as they did in
the west.!
In Labrador they gathered to feed on the wild berries,
chief of which was the Empetrum nigrum, called curlewberry
or “gallowberry ”’ by the natives, but generally known as the
crowberry. There they also fed on snails; and Mr. Berteau
states that they ate ‘sea lice and infusoria found on sandy
beaches.”
1 Mackay, George H.: Auk, 1896, p. 182.
%
PLATE XV.—THE LAST PASSENGER PIGEON.
A female in the Cincinnati Zoological Garden which died September |,
1914, being then about twenty-nine years old. The long, elegant
tail feathers have been broken off in the cage. (From a photo-
graph made and copyrighted by Enno Meyer, Cincinnati, O.,
1911.) The immense hosts of the Passenger Pigeon, formerly
one of the greatest zoological wonders of the world, are now
extinct.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 433
PASSENGER PIGEON (Kctopistes migratorius).
Common name: Wild Pigeon.
Length. — 15.50 to 16 inches.
Male. — Eye orange, bare space surrounding it purplish flesh color; head,
upper part of neck and chin bright slate blue; throat, breast and sides
reddish and hazel; part of neck and its sides resplendent changeable
gold and green metallic lusters; upper parts mainly dull blue; lower
parts reddish or chestnut fading toward tail; back and parts of wings
tinged with olive; shoulders and upper wings black-spotted; long wing
feathers and long middle tail feathers blackish; outer tail feathers white
or bluish, their inner webs black and chestnut near the base.
Female. — Much duller above and bluish or gray beneath.
Young. — Duller still, the feathers of upper parts with whitish edgings
and the wing feathers with rufous edgings.
Nest. — A frail platform of twigs in a tree.
Eggs. — One, rarely two, about 1.50 by 1.12; pure white.
Notes. — Coo-coo-coo-coo, much shorter than that of the domestic pigeon;
and kee-kee-kee-kee, the first loudest, the others diminishing (Audu-
bon). See also Craig, Auk, 1911, pp. 408-427.
Season. — In Massachusetts, formerly March to December.
Range. — North America, from the high plains of the Rocky Mountain
region to the Atlantic, ranging from the fur countries to the Gulf States;
one specimen recorded from Cuba. Casual in Mexico and Nevada.
History.
More interest is evinced in the history of the Passenger
Pigeon and its fate than in that of any other North American
bird. Its story reads like a romance. Once the most abun-
dant species, in its flights and on its nesting grounds, ever
known in any country, ranging over the greater part of the
continent of North America in innumerable hordes, the race
seems to have disappeared within the past thirty years, leav-
ing no trace. Men now living can remember its appearance
in countless multitudes in the western States, but the fact
that similar immense armies once ranged over the Atlantic
seaboard is almost forgotten. Nevertheless, this was a most
important part of its range, and its vast legions roamed over
the country from the Carolinas to the Maritime Provinces of
Canada, and even to the Barren Grounds and Hudson Bay.
The Passenger Pigeon was described by Linné in the latter
434 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
part of the eighteenth century (Syst. Nat., 1766, ed. 12, Vol. I,
p. 285); but it was well known in America many years before.
In July, 1605, on the coast of Maine, in latitude 43° 25’,
Champlain saw on some islands an “infinite number of
pigeons,’ of which he took a great quantity.!
Many early historians, who write of the birds of the
Atlantic coast region, mention the Pigeons. The Jesuit
Fathers, in their first narratives of Acadia (1610-13), state
that the birds were fully as abundant as the fish, and that in
their seasons the Pigeons overloaded the trees.?
Passing now from Nova Scotia to Florida, we find that
Stork (1766) asserts that they were in such plenty there for
three months of the year that an account of them would seem
incredible.*
John Lawson (1709), in his History of Carolina, speaks of
prodigious flocks of Pigeons in 1701-02, which broke down trees
in the woods where they roosted, and cleared away all the
food in the country before them, scarcely leaving one acorn
on the ground.
The early settlers in Virginia found the Pigeons in winter
“beyond number or imagination.”
Strachey (1612) says: ‘A kind of wood-pidgeon we see in
winter time, and of them such nombers, as I should drawe
(from our homelings here, such who have seene, peradventure
scarse one more than in the markett) the creditt of my rela-
tion concerning all the other in question yf I should expresse
what extended flocks, and how manie thousands in one flock. I
have seene in one daie . . . but there be manie hundred wit-
nesses.” >
Hamor (1615) says: ‘‘ My selfe haue seene three or foure
houres together flockes in the aire, so thicke that euen they
haue shaddowed the skie from vs.” ®
Professor Kalm found the Pigeons in numbers ‘beyond
1 Champlain, Samuel de: Pub. Prince Soc., 1878, Vol. II, pp. 68, 69.
2 Thwaites, R. G., and others: Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 1896, Vol. I, p. 253.
3 Stork, William: An Account of East Florida, 1766, p. 51.
4 Lawson, John: History of Carolina, 1860, pp. 232, 233.
5 Strachey, William: The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Brittannia, printed for the Hakluyt
Soc., 1849, p. 126.
6 Hamor, Raphe: A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia, 1615, p. 21.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 435
conception” in the middle States and in Canada.' He states,
in his monograph of the Passenger Pigeon, that there are certain
years ‘“‘when they come to Pennsylvania and the southern
English provinces in such indescribable multitudes as to appal
the people.” ? The year 1740 was one of the years when they
came to Pennsylvania and New Jersey in incredible multitudes.
He also states that Dr. Golden told him that he had twice
seen similar great flights between New York and Albany.
G. H. Hollister, in the History of Connecticut (1855), says
that pigeons were innumerable in spring and autumn and were
startled from the thickets in summer.?
Massachusetts authors make brief but numerous references
to the species.
Wood (1629-34) records the migration through eastern
Massachusetts in the following words: ‘“‘*These Birds come
into the Countrey, to goe to the North parts in the beginning
of our Spring, at which time (if I may be counted worthy, to
be beleeved in a thing that is not so strange as true) I have
seene them fly as if the Ayerie regiment had beene Pigeons;
seeing neyther beginning nor ending, length, or breadth of
these Millions of Millions. The shouting of people, the rat-
ling of Gunnes, and pelting of small shotte could not drive
them out of their course, but so they continued for foure or
five houres together: yet it must not be concluded, that it is
thus often; for it is but at the beginning of the Spring, and at
Michaelmas, when they returne backe to the Southward; yet
are there some all the yeare long, which are easily attayned
by such as looke after them. Many of them build amongst
the Pine-trees, thirty miles to the North-east of our planta-
tions; Joyning nest to nest, and tree to tree by their nests, so
that the Sunne never sees the ground in that place, from
whence the Indians fetch whole loades of them.” * This nest-
ing must have been somewhere near the coast of Essex, or, as
1 Kalm, Peter: Travels into North America, 1770 (first Engiish ed.), Vol. II, pp. 82, 311.
2 Kalm, Peter: A Description of the Wild Pigeons which visit the Southern English Colonies in
North America during Certain Years in Incredible Multitudes, translated by S. M. Gronberger from
Kongl. Vetenskaps-Akademiens Handlingar for ar 1759, Vol. XX, Stockholm, 1759; now published
in the Auk, 1911, pp. 53-66.
2 Hollister, G. H.: History of Connecticut, 1855, Vol. I, pp. 33, 34.
4 Wood, William: New England’s Prospect, Pub. Prince Soc., 1865, pp. 31, 32.
436 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Dr. Townsend puts it in his Birds of Essex County, in the
Essex woods.
The following is an extract from a letter written by
Governor Dudley to the Countess of Lincoln, March 12, 1630:
“Upon the eighth of March from after it was fair daylight, un-
til about eight of the clock in the forenoon, there flew over all
the towns in our plantations, so many flocks of doves, each
flock containing many thousands and some so many that they
obscured the light, that it passeth credit, if but the truth
should be written.” !
Higginson, writing of Salem about this date, apparently
makes the same statement in nearly the same words. In
Charles Brooks’s History of Medford, Mass. (p. 37), we find
the following occurrence recorded on March 8, 1631: ‘‘ Flocks
of wild pigeons this day, so thick they obscure the light.”
Apparently these were the first large flights of pigeons of
which we have definite record in New England.
The Plymouth colony was threatened with famine in
1643, when great flocks of Pigeons swept down upon the
ripened corn and beat down and ate “‘a very great quantity
of all sorts of English grain.” But Winthrop says that in
1648 they came again after the harvest was gathered, and
proved a great blessing, “it being incredible what multitudes
of them were killed daily.” ?
Roger Williams (1643) says that the Pigeons bred abun-
dantly in Rhode Island in the ‘Pigeon Countrie.” Josselyn
(1672), who had a general acquaintance with the New Eng-
land colonies, and who lived in Massachusetts and Maine for
some years, states that of Pigeons there were “millions of
millions; I have seen,” he asserts, “‘a flight of Pidgeons in
the spring, and at Michaelmas when they return back to the
Southward for four or five miles, that to my thinking had neither
beginning nor ending, length nor breadth, and so thick that
I could see no Sun.*. . . But of late they are much dimin-
ished, the English taking them with Nets.”
The latter statement shows that the extirpation of these
1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., Vol. VIII, 1st ser., p. 45.
2 Winthrop, John: The History of New England from 1630 to 1649. James Savage, editor, 1825-
26, Vol. II, pp. 94, 331, 332.
3 Josselvn, John: Two Voyages to New England, 1865, p. 79.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 437
birds began in New England within fifty years after the first
settlement at Plymouth. It went on for more than two hun-
dred years. Nevertheless, they were still quite numerous
about the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Lewis and Newhall, writing of those early days in the
History of Lynn (1866, p. 45), state that a single family “has
been known to have killed one hundred dozens of these birds
with poles and other weapons.”
Belknap (1792), in his History of New Hampshire, says
they “come in the spring, from the southward, in large flocks,
and breed in our woods, during the summer months.” Richard
Hazzen, who surveyed the Province line in 1741, remarks:
“Bor three miles together, the pigeons nests were so thick,
that five hundred might have been told on the beech trees at
one time; and could they have been counted on the hemlocks,
as well, I doubt not but five thousand, at one turn round.’
This was on the western side of the Connecticut River and
eastward of the Deerfield River [and probably extended into
Massachusetts]. Since the clearing of the woods the num-
ber of pigeons is diminished.” !
One of the earliest settlers at Clarendon, Vt., stated that
immense numbers of Pigeons nested there. The trees were
loaded with nests, and the noise made by the birds at night
was so troublesome that the traveller could get no sleep.
Settlers often cut down trees, and gathered a horse-load of
squabs in a few minutes.”
In the History of Wells and Kennebunk, Me., it is stated
that from the first settlement to 1820 Pigeons in innumerable
numbers haunted the woods near the sea. In their season
they furnished food for many families.*
Isaac Weld, Jr. (1799), relates that a resident of Niagara,
while sailing from that town to Toronto (forty miles), saw a
great flight of Pigeons coming from the north which continued
throughout the voyage, and the birds were still coming from
the north in large bodies after he reached Toronto.‘
1 Belknap, Jeremy: History of New Hampshire, 1792, Vol. III, pp. 171, 172.
2 Williams, Samuel: The Natural and Civil History of Vermont, 1809, Vol. I, p. 137.
3 Bourne, Edward E.: History of Wells and Kennebunk, 1875, pp. 563, 564.
4 Weld, Isaac, Jr.: Travels through the States of North America, etc., during the years 1795, 1796,
1797, London, 1800, Vol. II, p. 43.
438 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
The Baron de Lahontan, in a letter dated May 28, 1687,
from Boucherville, describing a flight of these birds in the
vicinity of Lake Champlain, says: ‘‘One would have thought,
that all the Turtle-Doves on Earth had chose to pass thro’
this place. For the eighteen or twenty days that we stayed
there, I firmly believe that a thousand Men might have fed
upon ’em heartily, without putting themselves to any trouble.
. . . The trees were covered with that sort of fowl more than
with leaves.” !
These great flights of Pigeons in migration extended over
vast tracts of country, and usually passed in their greatest
numbers for about three days. This is the testimony of
observers in many parts of the land. Afterward, flocks often
came along for a week or two longer. Even as late as the
decade succeeding 1860 such flights continued, and were still
observed throughout the eastern States and Canada, except
perhaps along the Atlantic coast.
W. Ross King (1866) speaks of a flight at Fort Mississi-
saugua, Canada, which filled the air and obscured the sun for
fourteen hours. He believes that the flight must have
averaged three hundred miles in length by a mile wide. An
immense flight continued for several days thereafter.”
Wild Pigeons are not mentioned in Hampshire County,
Mass., records until after 1700, but undoubtedly they were
there when settlement began. They had a breeding place
near the line between Hampshire County and Vermont, and
their nests on the beech and hemlock trees extended for miles.
They were noted in Hampshire County before 1740, and many
were shot. Levi Moody is given by Judd as authority for the
statement that they were caught in such numbers in Granby
that not all could be sold or eaten, and after the feathers
had been plucked from them, many were fed to the hogs.
Pigeon feathers were much used for beds. In August, 1736,
Pigeons were sold in the Boston market at twopence per
dozen, and many could not be sold at that price. In
Northampton, from 1725 to 1785, when they could be sold,
1 Lahontan, Baron de: Some New Voyages to North America, 1703, Vol. I, pp. 61, 62.
2 King, W. Ross: The Sportsman and Naturalist in Canada, 1866, p. 121.
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PLATE XVI.—PIGEON NET.
Taken from an old etching. (Reproduced from The Passenger
Pigeon, by W. B. Mershon.)
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 439
they brought usually from threepence to sixpence per dozen.
In 1790 they brought ninepence per dozen, and a few years
after 1800, one shilling, sixpence. After 1850 they were sold
at from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half a dozen.!
In the History of the Sesqui-centennial Celebration of the
Town of Hadley, Mass., it is stated that before 1719 Wild
Pigeons in their migrations roosted in countless numbers in
the oak and chestnut groves on the plains.
Thompson states that when the country was new there
were many of their breeding places in Vermont; also, that
they were much less abundant (1842) than formerly; ‘ but,”
he says, “they now, In some years, appear in large numbers.”’”
Great nestings became few and far between in the east, as
the Pigeons decreased; but there were many small breeding
places regularly occupied during the first half of the nine-
teenth century, and scattered pairs bred commonly. Mr.
Clayton E. Stone sends an account of the nesting site of a
flock of Passenger Pigeons, furnished by his father, Mr. Still-
man Stone, who was well acquainted with the birds. It was
situated on the side of Mt. Sterling, in the towns of Stowe
and Hyde Park (formerly Sterling), in the northern part of
Vermont. Mr. Stone was acquainted with it from 1848 to
about 1853. It occupied a tract of twenty acres or more of
old-growth maple and yellow birch. There were often as
many as twenty-five nests In a tree, and sometimes more.
The usual number of eggs in one nest was one or two, usually
one. Most of the time during the nesting season large flocks
of these birds could be seen coming and going in all directions
to and from the nests. The people from this and neighboring
towns went to the place with their teams to take up the
squabs that had fallen to the ground; they took them away by
cartloads. The squabs were distributed free, to be used as
food by all their friends and neighbors.
In 1848 Mr. Stone and Madison Newcomb sprung a net
over forty-four dozen, or five hundred and twenty-eight birds,
at one cast, and they thought that only about one bird in four
1 Judd, Sylvester: History of Hadley, 1905, pp. 351, 352.
2 Thompson, Zadock: History of Vermont, 1842, p. 100.
440 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
of the flock was taken. Many escaped while they were tak-
ing out the forty-four dozen. Pigeons were abundant in that
locality until the fall of 1865, when a man could shoot in half
a day all that he could use. Mr. Stone says that hawks
ravaged the birds continually. He left Vermont in 1866, and
does not know how long afterward the Pigeons continued
plentiful. At that time there were still many Pigeons in
Massachusetts. There were bough houses and roosts erected
for shooting Pigeons, ‘‘ Pigeon beds,” nets and stool Pigeons
in almost every town. Old men remember this even now.
Thoreau speaks of the arrangements for Pigeon shooting in
Concord in the 50’s.
Mr. Warren H. Manning writes me of a method of taking
Pigeons which I have not seen described. He sends a sketch of
a Pigeon basket (see Fig. 21)
which was used by Lucinda
Manning and her sisters at the
Manning Manse in Billerica,
Mass. This basket was used
as a receptacle for the Pigeons
after they had been taken.
Mr. Manning states that these
sisters had a Pigeon ‘‘ bower”
and snares in the valley in
sight of the house, in the edge
of what was then pine woods.
“The snaring of Pigeons,”
he says, ““must have represented quite an income to these
sisters and their family before them.” The old house was
used as a tavern for more than one hundred years, and the
tavern book, kept there from 1753 to 1796, is now in exist-
ence. Frequent references to the sale of Pigeons are made
therein.
There are not many exact records of the flights of Pigeons
in Massachusetts during the early part of the nineteenth cen-
tury. They were of such regular occurrence that no one
thought of recording them. Dr. Samuel Cabot told Mr.
Brewster that from 1832 to 1836, while he was in college at
Fig, 21.— Pigeon basket.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 44]
Cambridge, Pigeons visited the town regularly, both in spring
and autumn, sometimes in immense numbers.’
Mr. Clayton E. Stone writes that Mr. M. M. Boutwell,
brother of the late Governor, George 5S. Boutwell, knew of a
nesting place of the Passenger Pigeon in the northern part of
Lunenburg, Mass., from his earliest recollection until 1851 or
1852. He states that an old gunner, Samuel Johnson, used to
visit this place every year to get squabs. It was situated in
the northern part of the town, on a tract of land which up to
1840 or 1845 was almost an unbroken forest for miles. It is
said to have comprised something like five acres. Mr. Bout-
well says that anywhere in any fall, until the year 1860, a
man could get in an hour all the Pigeons he could use.
Mr. James W. Moore of Agawam, Mass., states that after
1850 great flocks of Pigeons still visited that region; and that
as a boy he was sent to drive them from the rye, when it had
been sown but not harrowed in. ‘‘ We boys,” he says, ** had
Pigeon beds, and caught them in nets.”’
About this time indications of the disappearance of the
Pigeons in the east began to attract some notice. They
became rare in Newfoundland in the 60’s, though formerly
abundant there. They grew fewer in Ontario at that time;
but, according to Fleming, some of the old roosts there were
occupied until 1870.
Mr. C. S. Brimley states that they were seen in some
numbers near Raleigh, N. C., up to about 1850. For thirty
years he has not seen one, which would fix the date of their
disappearance there about 1880. Mr. Witmer Stone believes
that they became rare in New Jersey about that time.
During the ensuing decade they became very rare in
Massachusetts; but Mr. August B. Ross states that the
Pigeons were “‘quite plenty” in rye fields on the plains at
Montague, Mass., about 1879; and Mr. Robert O. Morris
says that a small flock was seen in Longmeadow in the spring
of 1880; but there is no authentic record of a Pigeon seen or
taken in that vicinity since 1884. This seems to mark approxi-
1 Brewster, William: Memoirs, Nuttall Orn. Club, No. IV, Birds of the Cambridge Region of
Massachusetts, 1906, p. 176.
442 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
mately the time that the bird disappeared from the Connecti-
cut valley.
Brewster records a flock of about fifty Pigeons on Septem-
ber 2, 1868, in Cambridge; and he states that a heavy flight
passed through eastern Massachusetts between September 2
and September 10, 1871, and that he was assured that thou-
sands were killed, and that the netters in Concord and Read-
ing used their nets as of old.!
My first experience with the Pigeons was in 1872. Many
flocks went through Worcester County during the fall of that
year, and I saw small flocks passing rapidly over the northern
end of Lake Quinsigamond. Friends saw them in Spencer,
Mass., and in other towns near Worcester. At that time the
Pigeons were still breeding in Pembroke, N. H., about five
miles south of Concord, where I passed the summer.
In 1872 a flock came into a cherry tree at Lanesville, Mass.,
under the shade of which Gen. Benjamin F. Butler stood
delivering an address to a gathering of some two thousand
people. Birds alighted ‘‘ on every part of the tree.” ?
I have found no records of any considerable flights of Pas-
senger Pigeons in Massachusetts since 1876. Hundreds of
thousands of Pigeons then appeared in the Connecticut
valley.*
Maynard (1870) considered the Pigeon as a common bird
in localities, but growing less so every year.
In 1870 Samuels stated that the Passenger Pigeon had
become “ of late years rather scarce in New England.”’®
In 1876 Minot wrote that in many places the Pigeons were
then comparatively rare. He stated also that in a low pine
wood within the present limits of Boston, flocks of several
hundred have roosted every year.®
During the decade from 1880 to 1890 the Pigeon seems to
have disappeared from Massachusetts. A good many birds
1 Brewster, William: Birds of the Cambridge Region, 1906, p. 177.
2 Leonard, H. C.: Pigeon Cove, Mass., 1873, p. 165.
3 Morris, Robert O.: Birds of Springfield and Vicinity, 1901, p. 17.
4 Maynard, C. J.: List of the Birds of Massachusetts, Naturalist’s Guide, 1870, Part 2, p. 137.
5 Samuels, Edward A.: Birds of New England, 1870, p. 374.
6 Minot, Henry D.: The Land Birds and Game Birds of New England, 2d ed., ed. by William
Brewster, 1895, p. 396.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 443
were seen and shot as late as the year 1878; after that they
were scarce. The bird was seen by Mr. C. E. Ingalls at Win-
chendon, Mass., in 1889; and several were reported by Mr.
Ralph Holman at Worcester in August, September and
October. He also reports one killed by a Mr. Newton, jani-
tor of the Worcester high school, on September 23, 1889.
The last published authentic record of a Passenger Pigeon
taken in Massachusetts is given by Howe and Allen as 1889; !
but Mr. Neil Casey of Melrose has an adult female bird
mounted, which he shot there on April 12, 1894; and he says
that two days later a friend saw another, apparently its mate,
in the same woods.”
Many observers report that they have seen the Passenger
Pigeon in Massachusetts since that time, but no later authentic
record of a specimen actually taken here is available. My
correspondence with many hundreds of people throughout the
State has resulted in no evidence of the occurrence of the
species here, that would be accepted by ornithologists, since
the beginning of the present century.
Unfortunately, there is no detailed published account of
the migrations or the nesting of the Passenger Pigeon in Mas-
sachusetts or New England in the times when they were
numerous; and to get any adequate idea of their numbers,
their habits and the causes of their disappearance, we must
turn to the writings of Wilson, Audubon and others, who
observed the bird in the south and west.
Kalm (1759) says that on the 11th, 12th, 15th, 16th, 17th,
18th and 22d of March, 1749, such a multitude of these birds
came to Pennsylvania that a flock alighting to roost in the
woods filled both great and little trees for seven miles, and
hardly a twig or branch could be seen which they did not
cover. On the larger limbs they piled up in heaps. Limbs
the size of a man’s thigh were broken off by their weight, and
the less firmly rooted trees broke down completely under their
1 See also Thayer, H. J.: Forest and Stream, Vol. XX XIII, Oct. 31, 1889, p. 288.
2 According to Perkins and Howe a few were to be seen near Essex Junction, Vt., and about Fort
Ethan Allen each season up to the date of their publication (1901),and Dr. Perkins wrote me in
1910 that he believed that there were a few still about Stratton Mountain in that State where for-
merly they nested in great numbers, but no one has been able to obtain a specimen. See Perkins,
Geo. H., and Howe, C. D.: A Preliminary List of the Birds found in Vermont, 1901, p. 17.
444 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
load.1. This reads like the tale of a romancer; but similar
occurrences all over the land are recorded by many credible
witnesses.
Alexander Wilson, the father of American ornithology, tells
of a breeding place of the Wild Pigeons in Shelbyville, Ky.
(probably about 1806), which was several miles in breadth,
and was said to be more than forty miles in extent. More
than one hundred nests were found on a tree. The ground
was strewn with broken limbs of trees; also eggs and dead
squabs which had been precipitated from above, on which
herds of hogs were fattening. He speaks of a flight of these
birds from another nesting place some sixty miles away from
the first, toward Green River, where they were said to be
equally numerous. They were travelling with great steadi-
ness and rapidity, at a height beyond gunshot, several strata
deep, very close together, and “‘from right to left as far as
the eye could reach, the breadth of this vast procession
extended; seeming everywhere equally crowded.” From half-
past 1 to 40’clock in the afternoon, while he was travelling to
Frankfort, the same living torrent rolled overhead, seemingly
as extensive as ever. He estimated the flock that passed him
to be two hundred and forty miles long and a mile wide, —
probably much wider, — and to contain two billion, two hun-
dred and thirty million, two hundred and seventy-two thou-
sand pigeons. On the supposition that each bird consumed
only half a pint of nuts and acorns daily, he reckoned that this
column of birds would eat seventeen million, four hundred and
twenty-four thousand bushels each day.
Audubon states that in the autumn of 1813 he left his
house at Henderson, on the banks of the Ohio, a few miles
from Hardensburgh, to go to Louisville, Ky. He saw that
day what he thought to be the largest flight of Wild Pigeons
he had ever seen. The air was literally filled with them; and
“the light of noonday was obscured as by an_ eclipse.”
Before sunset he reached Louisville, fifty-five miles from
Hardensburgh, and during all that time Pigeons were passing
in undiminished numbers. This continued for three days in
1 Auk, 1911, pp. 56, 57.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 445
succession. The people were all armed, and the banks of the
river were crowded with men and boys, incessantly shooting
at the Pigeons, which flew lower as they passed the river.
For a week or more the people fed on no other flesh than
Pigeons. The atmosphere during that time was strongly
impregnated with the odor of the birds. Audubon estimated
the number of Pigeons passing overhead (in a flock one mile
wide) for three hours, travelling at the rate of a mile a minute,
allowing two Pigeons to the square yard, as one billion, one
hundred and fifteen million, one hundred and thirty-six thou-
sand. He estimated, also, that a flock of this size would re-
quire eight million, seven hundred and twelve thousand bushels
of food a day, and this was only a small part of the three
days’ flight.
Great flights of Pigeons ranged from the Alleghenies to
the Mississippi and from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico,
until after the middle of the nineteenth century. Even two
decades later, enormous numbers of Pigeons nested in several
States.
Their winter roosting places almost defy description.
Audubon rode through one on the banks of the Green River
in Kentucky for more than forty miles, crossing it in different
directions, and found its average width to be rather more than
three miles. He observed that the ejecta covered the whole
extent of the roosting place, like snow; that many trees two
feet in diameter were broken off not far from the ground, and
that the branches of many of the largest and tallest had given
way.!
The birds came in soon after sundown with a noise that
sounded “like a gale passing through the rigging of a close-
reefed vessel,” causing a great current of air as they passed;
and here and there, as the flocks alighted, the limbs gave way
with a crash, destroying hundreds of the birds beneath. It
was a scene of uproar and confusion. No one dared venture
1 Audubon’s statement that trees were broken off by the birds has been questioned, but it is
corroborated by others. James Mease (1807) quotes a Rev. Mr. Hall who saw a hickory tree more
than a foot in diameter bent over by the birds until its top touched the ground and its roots were
started, and he states that brittle trees often were broken off by them. (Mease, James: A Geological
Account of the United States, 1807, pp. 348, 349. Kalm and Lawson also observed this long
before the time of Audubon.)
446 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
into the woods during the night, because of the falling
branches.
The nesting places sometimes were equal in size to the
roosting places, for the Pigeons congregated in enormous num-
bers, to breed in the northern and eastern States. When food
was plentiful in the forests, the birds concentrated in large
numbers; when it was not, they scattered in smaller groups.
Mr. Henry T. Phillips, a game dealer of Detroit, who bought
and sold Pigeons for many years, states that one season in
Wisconsin he saw a nesting place that extended through the
woods for a hundred miles. ?
The last great nesting place of which we have adequate
records was in Michigan, in 1878. Prof. H. B. Roney states,
in the American Field (Vol. 10, 1879, pp. 345-347), that the
nesting near Petoskey, that year, covered something like one
hundred thousand acres, and included not less than one hun-
dred and fifty thousand acres within its limits. It was esti-
mated to be about forty miles in length and from three to ten
miles in width. It is difficult to approximate the number of
millions of Pigeons that occupied that great nesting place.
Audubon, who described the dreadful havoc made among
these birds on their roosting grounds by man, says that people
unacquainted with them might naturally conclude that such
destruction would soon put an end to the species; but he
had satisfied himself, by long observation, that nothing but
the gradual diminution of the forests could accomplish the
decrease of the birds, for he believed that they not infre-
quently quadrupled their numbers during the year, and always
doubled them. The enormous multitudes of the Pigeons made
such an impression upon the mind that the extinction of the
species at that time, and for many years afterwards, seemed
an absolute impossibility. Nevertheless, it has occurred.
How can this apparent impossibility be explained? It
cannot be accounted for by the destructiveness of their
natural enemies, for during the years when the Pigeons were
the most abundant their natural enemies were most numerous.
The extinction of the Pigeons has been coincident with the
1 Mershon, W. B.: The Passenger Pigeon, 1907, p. 107.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 447
disappearance of bears, panthers, wolves, lynxes and some of
the larger birds of prey from a large portion of their range.
The aborigines never could have reduced appreciably the
numbers of the species. Wherever the great roosts were estab-
lished, Indians always gathered in large numbers. This,
according to their traditions, had been the custom among
them from time immemorial. They always had slaughtered
these birds, young and old, in great quantities; but there was
no market among the Indians, and the only way in which
they could preserve the meat for future use was by drying or
smoking the breasts. They cured large numbers in this way.
Also, they were accustomed to kill great quantities of the
squabs in order to try out the fat, which was used as butter is
used by the whites. Lawson writes (1709): ‘‘ You may find
several Indian towns of not above seventeen houses that have
more than one hundred gallons of pigeon’s oil or fat.” !
But it was not until a market demand for the birds was
created by the whites that the Indians ever seriously affected
the increase of the Pigeons. alm states, in his monograph
of the Pigeon, that the Indians of Canada would not molest
the Pigeons in their breeding places until the young were able
to fly. They did everything in their power to prevent the
whites from disturbing them, even using threats, where plead-
ing did not avail.
When the white man appeared on this continent, condi-
tions rapidly changed. Practically all the early settlers were
accustomed to the use of firearms; and wherever Pigeons
appeared in great numbers, the inhabitants armed themselves
with guns, clubs, stones, poles and whatever could be used to
destroy the birds. The most destructive implement was the
net, to which the birds were attracted by bait, and under
which vast numbers of them were trapped. Gunners baited
the birds with grain. Dozens of birds sometimes were killed
thus at a single shot. In one case seventy-one birds were
killed by two shots.2 A single shot from the old flint-lock
single-barreled gun, fired into a tree, sometimes would procure
1 Lawson, John: History of Carolina, 1860, p. 78.
2 Leffingwell, W. B.: Shooting on Upland, Marsh and Stream, 1890, p. 228.
448 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
a backload of Pigeons. The Jesuit Relations of 1662-64 tell
of aman who killed one hundred and thirty-two birds at a
shot. Kalm states that frequently as many as one hundred
and thirty were killed at one shot. Shooting in the large
roosts was very destructive. Osborn records a kill of one
hundred and forty-four birds with two barrels. An engine of
destruction often used in early times was an immense swivel
gun, loaded with “ handfuls of bird shot.’ Such guns were
taken to the roosts and fired into the thickest masses of
Pigeons, killing at one discharge “enough to feed a whole
settlement.”
As cities were established in the east, the Indians, now
armed with guns and finding a market for their birds, became
doubly destructive; but as the white man moved toward the
west he destroyed the Indian as well as the game, until few
Indians were left in most of the country occupied by the
Pigeons.
The Pigeons were reduced greatly in numbers on the whole
Atlantic seaboard during the first two centuries after the
settlement of the country, but in the west their numbers
remained apparently the same until the nineteenth century.
There was no appreciable decrease there during the first half
of that century; but during the latter half, railroads were
pushed across the plains to the Pacific, settlers increased
rapidly to the Mississippi and beyond, and the diminution of
the Pigeons in the west began. Already it had become notice-
able in western Pennsylvania, western New York, along the
Appalachian Mountain chain and in Ohio. This was due in
part to the destruction of the forests, particularly the beech
woods, which once covered vast tracts, and which furnished
the birds with a chief supply of food. Later, the primeval
pine and hemlock forests of the northern States largely were
cut away. This deprived the birds of another source of
food, — the seed of these trees. The destruction of the forests,
however, was not complete; for, although great tracts of land
were cleared, there remained and still remain vast regions
more or less covered by coppice growth sufficient to furnish
1 Thwaites, R. G., and others: Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 1896, Vol. 48, p. 177.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 449
great. armies of Pigeons with food, and the cultivation of the
land and the raising of grain provided new sources of food
supply. Therefore, while the reduction of the forest area in
the east was a large factor in the diminution of the Pigeons,
we cannot attribute their extermination to the destruction of
the forest. Forest fires undoubtedly had something to do
with reducing the numbers of these birds, for many were
destroyed by these fires, and in some cases large areas of forest
were ruined absolutely by fire, thus for many years depriving
the birds of a portion of their food supply. Nevertheless, the
fires were local and restricted, and had comparatively little
effect on the vast numbers of the species.
The main factors in the extermination of the Pigeons are
set forth in a work entitled The Passenger Pigeon, by W. B.
Mershon (1907), which will well repay perusal, and in which
a compilation is made of many of the original accounts of the
destruction of the Pigeon during the nineteenth century.
From this volume many of the following facts are taken.
In early days the Allegheny Mountains and the vast region
lying between them and the Mississippi River were covered
largely by unbroken forest, as was also much of the country
from the Maritime Provinces of Canada to Lake Winnipeg.
The only inhabitants were scattered bands of Indians. The
Pigeons found a food supply through all this vast region, and
also nesting places which were comparatively unmolested by
man; but as settlement advanced, as railroads were built,
spanning the continent, as telegraph lines followed them, as
markets developed for the birds, an army of people, hunters,
settlers, netters and Indians found in the Pigeons a con-
siderable part of their means of subsistence, and the birds
were constantly pursued, wherever they appeared, at all
seasons of the year. They wandered through this vast region,
resorting to well-known roosting places and nesting places,
containing from a million or two of birds to a billion or more;
and there were many smaller colonies. Wherever they
appeared, they were attacked immediately by practically all
the people in that region. At night their roosts were visited
by men who brought pots of burning sulphur, to suffocate the
450 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
birds and bring them to the ground. An assortment of
weapons was brought into service. When the birds nested in
the primeval birch woods of the north, the people set fire to
the loose hanging bark, which flamed up like a great torch,
until the whole tree was ablaze, scorching the young birds,
and causing them to leap from their nests to the ground in
their dying agonies.
At the great nesting places both Indians and white men
felled the trees in such a way that the larger trees, in falling,
broke down the smaller ones and threw the helpless squabs to
the ground. The squabs were gathered, their heads pulled
off, their bodies thrown into sacks, and large droves of hogs
were turned in, to fatten on those which could not be used.
Sometimes, when the Pigeons flew low, they easily were
knocked down with poles and oars swung in the direction of
their flight or across it, and in early days thousands were killed
with poles at the roosts. Pike, on a trip from Leech River to
St. Louis, on April 28, 1806, stopped at a Pigeon roost, and in
about fifteen minutes his men knocked on the head and brought
aboard two hundred and ninety-eight Pigeons.
As soon as it was learned in a town that the Pigeons were
roosting or nesting in the neighborhood, great nets were set in
the fields, baited with grain or something attractive to the
birds. Decoy birds were used, and enormous numbers of
Pigeons were taken by springing the nets over them; while
practically every able-bodied citizen, men, women, children
and servants, turned out to “lend a hand” either in killing
the Pigeons or in hauling away the loads of dead birds.
Wherever the Pigeons nested near the settlements, they
were pursued throughout the summer by hunters and boys.
Kalm, in his account of the species (1759), states that several
extremely aged men told him that during their childhood there
were many more Pigeons in New Sweden during summer than
there were when he was there. He believed that the Pigeons
had been “either killed off or scared away.” In either case
their decrease was evident at that early date.
1 Pike, Zebulon Montgomery: The Expeditions of, during the years 1805-07, by Elliott Coues, 1895,
Vol. I, p. 212.
PLATE XVII.—YOUNG PASSENGER PIGEON.
Photograph by Prof. C. O. Whitman. This illustration was first
published in W. B. Mershon’s work, The Passenger Pigeon.
at
te hae)
er a
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 451
The net, though used by fowlers almost everywhere in the
east, from the earliest settlement of the country, was not a
great factor in the extermination of the Pigeons in the Mis-
sissipp1 valley States until the latter half of the nineteenth
century. With the extension of railroads and telegraph lines
through the States, the occupation of the netter became more
stable than before, for he could follow the birds wherever they
went. The number of men who made netting an occupation
after the year 1860 is variously estimated at from four hun-
dred to one thousand. Whenever a flight of Pigeons left one
nesting place and made toward another, the netters learned
their whereabouts by telegraph, packed up their belongings
and moved to the new location, sometimes following the birds
a thousand miles at one move. Some of them not only made
a living, but earned a competency, by netting Pigeons during
part of the year and shooting wild-fowl and game birds during
the remainder of the season. In addition to these there were
the local netters, who plied the trade only when the Pigeons
came their way.
From the time of Audubon and Wilson, even before the
railroads had penetrated to the west, there was an enormous
destruction of Pigeons for the markets. Wagonloads were
sent to market, where the birds were sold at from twelve cents
to fifty cents per dozen, according to the exigencies of supply
and demand. Audubon tells of seeing schooners loaded in bulk
with Pigeons in 1805 that were killed up the Hudson River
and taken to the New York market. He says that from ten
to thirty dozen were caught at one sweep of the net. In the
early days the farmers destroyed large quantities of Pigeons
for salting, and people were employed about the roosts pluck-
ing the birds for their feathers (which were used for beds),
and salting down the heaps of bodies which were piled on the
ground. Birds and beasts of prey got their share. Audubon
in describing a great roost in Kentucky, says that the birds
took flight before sunrise, after which foxes, lynxes, cougars,
bears, opossums and polecats were seen sneaking off, and the
howlings of wolves were heard; while Eagles, Hawks and Vul-
tures came in numbers to feast on the dead or disabled
452 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Pigeons which had been slaughtered during the night. He
states that in March, 1830, the Pigeons were so abundant in
New York City that piles of them could be seen on every
hand.
Great nesting places of Pigeons occasionally were estab-
lished in the eastern States after the middle of the nineteenth
century, when vast numbers were killed for market. In 1848
eighty tons of these birds were shipped from Cattaraugus
County, New York.
Mr. E. H. Eaton, in his Birds of New York (Vol. I, p. 382),
says that the last great nesting in New York was in Allegany
County, in 1868, extending about fourteen miles, and crossing
the Pennsylvania line. He states also that there was an
immense roost in Steuben County in 1875.
Possibly the last great slaughter of Pigeons in New York,
of which we have record, was some time in the 70’s. A flock
had nested in Missouri in April, where most of the squabs
were killed by the pigeoners. This flock then went to Michi-
gan, where they were followed by the same pigeoners, who
again destroyed the squabs. The Pigeons then flew to New
York State, and nested near the upper Beaverkill in the Cats-
kills, in the lower part of Ulster County. It is said that tons
of the birds were sent to the New York market from this
nesting place, and that not less than fifteen tons of ice were
used in packing the squabs.!
The wholesale slaughter in the west continued to increase
until 1878. There were very large nestings in Michigan in
1868, 1870, 1872, 1874, 1876 and 1878. In 1876 there were at
least three of these great breeding places in the State, one
each in Newaygo, Oceana and Grand Traverse counties.?, The
great killing of 1878 in Michigan is said to have yielded no
less than three hundred tons of birds to the market. Various
figures are given regarding the number of birds killed in a few
weeks at this great nesting place near Petoskey, Mich. Pro-
fessor Roney estimates that a billion birds were destroyed
there. This is evidently a very excessive approximation.
1 Van Cleef, J. S.: Forest and Stream, 1899, Vol. 52, p. 385.
2 Mershon, W. B.: The Passenger Pigeon, 1907, p. 77.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 453
Mr. E. T. Martin, one of the netters, gives what he calls the
* official figures’ of the number marketed as one million, one
hundred and seven thousand, eight hundred and _ sixty-six.
His “‘figures”’ are largely estimates, but he states that one
and a half millions would cover all the birds killed at the
Petoskey nesting that year. This is apparently a very low
estimate. Mr. W. B. Mershon shows that some of Mr.
Martin’s figures are very far below the actual shipments.
Professor Roney watched one netter at the Petoskey nest-
ing place, who killed eighty-two dozen Pigeons in one day;
and who stated that he had killed as many as eighty-seven
dozen, or ten hundred and forty-four birds, in a day. The
law regarding shooting and netting the birds at their nesting
places was ignored. Professor Roney states that the sheriff
drove out four hundred Indians from the Petoskey nesting in
one day, and turned back five hundred incoming Indians the
next; and that people estimated that there were from two
thousand to twenty-five hundred people at this nesting place,
engaged in the business of trapping, killing and_ shipping
Pigeons. Mr. H. T. Phillips, a grocer and provision dealer at
Cheboygan, Mich., says that from 1864 until “the Pigeons
left the country ” he handled live Pigeons in numbers up to
one hundred and seventy-five thousand a year. He asserts
that in 1874 there was a nesting at Shelby, Mich., from which
one hundred barrels of birds were shipped daily for thirty
days. At forty dozen birds to the barrel, this would total
one million, four hundred and forty thousand birds.
During the 70’s most of the Pigeons concentrated in the
west. They often passed the winter in Texas, Arkansas,
Missouri, the Indian Territory and contiguous regions, and
the summer in Michigan and adjacent States and in the
Canadian northwest. At this time some very large nets were
used, grain beds were made, and the birds were allowed to
come and feed there until from two hundred to two hundred
and fifty dozen were taken sometimes at one haul. Mr.
Mershon gives many records of large catches, and the largest
number caught at one spring of the net (thirty-five hundred
birds) is attributed to E. Osborn; but Mr. Osborn himself
454 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
says that it was two hundred and fifty dozen, or three thou-
sand birds. It was made by fastening three large nets
together, and springing all of them at once; sometimes one
hundred dozen were taken in a single net. Mr. Osborn states
that his firm alone shipped in 1861, from a roost in the
Hocking Hills, Ohio, two hundred and twenty-five barrels of
birds. Sullivan Cook asserts, in Forest and Stream (March 14,
1903), that in 1869 for about forty days there were shipped
from Hartford, Mich., and vicinity, three carloads a day, each
car containing one hundred and fifty barrels, with thirty-five
dozen in a barrel, making the daily shipment twenty-four
thousand, seven hundred and fifty dozen. Evidently there is
a typographical error here, as it would require fifty-five dozen
in a barrel to make the daily shipment twenty-four thousand,
seven hundred and fifty dozen, or eleven million, eight hundred
and eighty thousand birds for the season. Thirty-five dozen
domestic Pigeons would fill an ordinary sugar barrel; and
possibly it required fifty-five dozen Passenger Pigeons to fill a
sugar barrel, as they were not as large as the domestic
Pigeons. Mr. Cook’s figures seem to be based on fifty-five
dozen to a barrel. In three years’ time, he says (which may
mean three years later), there were shipped nine hundred and
ninety thousand dozen. In the two succeeding years it is
estimated that one-third more than this number, or fifteen
million, eight hundred and forty thousand birds, were shipped
from Shelby, Mich. These estimates were made by men who
killed and marketed the Pigeons. The figures may be exces-
sive, but, if reduced one-half, they still would be enormous.
It is claimed by Mr. C. H. Engle, a resident of Petoskey,
Mich., that ‘‘ two years later”? there were shipped from that
point five carloads a day for thirty days, with an average of
eight thousand, two hundred and fifty dozen to the carload, or
fourteen million, eight hundred and fifty thousand birds. Mr.
S.S. Stevens told Mr. William Brewster that at least five hun-
dred men were netting Pigeons at Petoskey in 1881, and
thought they might have taken twenty thousand birds each, or
ten million Pigeons. Still, people read of the “ mysterious”
disappearance of the Passenger Pigeon, wonder what caused
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 455
it, and say that it never has been satisfactorily explained.
The New York market alone would take one hundred barrels
a day for weeks, without a break in price. Chicago, St.
Louis, Boston and all the great and little cities of the north
and east joined in the demand. Need we wonder why the
Pigeons have vanished?
Most of the above calculations are founded on statements
derived from Mr. Mershon’s work. A little volume entitled
Etna and Kirkersville, by Gen. Morris Schaff, gives some of
the history of the destruction of the Pigeons in Ohio; and
there are many short articles on this subject in the sports-
man’s papers, particularly in Forest and Stream and the
American Field. The birds that survived the slaughter at
Petoskey in 1878 finally left the nesting place in large bodies
and disappeared to the north, and from that time onward the
diminution of the Pigeons was continuous. Some of the net-
ters asserted that this great flight was swallowed up in Lake
Michigan, and that the Pigeons then became practically
extinct. This statement had no foundation in fact, as will
presently appear. It is probable that when they left Petoskey
in 1878 they retired into inaccessible regions of Canada,
beyond reach of the rail and telegraph, to breed again. In
April, 1880, they again passed through Michigan. Prof.
Walter B. Barrows quotes John Sims, county game warden,
to the effect that on that date ‘‘ millions” of Pigeons passed
over Iosco, going westward, but were never seen there after-
ward.
It has been stated that the Wild Pigeon ‘‘ went off like
dynamite.” Even the naturalists failed to secure sufficient
specimens and notes, as no one had an idea that extinction
was imminent. Practically the same thing has been said
about the extermination of the Labrador Duck, the Great
Auk and the Eskimo Curlew, which, if not extinct, is now
apparently on the verge of extinction.
People never realize the danger of extirpating a species
until it is too late; but the apparent sudden diminution and
extermination of the Passenger Pigeon was, like that of the
other species, more seeming than real. Prof. Walter B. Bar-
456 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
rows of the Michigan Agricultural College, who has collected
many data regarding this bird, says that it was abundant in
Michigan until 1880, fairly common from 1880 to 1890, but
steadily decreasing in numbers, and was by no means rare in
1891, 1892 and 1893. Then it rapidly became scarce, and
disappeared. There were many smaller nestings for years
after the Petoskey nesting of 1878, but the records are
meager, for apparently no naturalist visited them. The
Petoskey nesting of 1878 was unusually large for that time,
for the reason that the birds at three large breeding places in
other States or regions were driven out by persecution, and
joined the Petoskey group. After this the birds exhibited a
tendency to scatter to regions where they were least molested.
There seem to have been two great nestings in Michigan in
1881. Brewster quotes Mr. S. 8. Stevens of Cadillac, Mich.,
as saying that the last nesting of any importance in Michigan
was in 1881, a few miles west of Grand Traverse. It was
perhaps eight miles long. Pigeons were common in Iowa in
1884 (Anderson: Birds of Iowa). Mr. A. S. Eldredge writes
that he saw a flight of Pigeons near Lampasas, Tex., in the
winter of 1882-83, that was three and one-half hours in pass-
ing; and that he saw a roost among the post oaks where
every tree was loaded with the birds.
Our Canadian records of the species at this time are
meager. Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton says that it bred in
Manitoba in considerable numbers as late as 1887; but he
also says (Auk, 1908, p. 452) that the last year in which the
Pigeons came to Manitoba ‘in force”? was in 1878; next
year they were comparatively scarce, and each year since
they have become more so. In 1881 McCoun saw large
flocks there, and shot large numbers for food; and the eggs of
this species were taken by Miles Spence at James Bay as late
as 1888. The species was recorded in Montreal and other
localities in east Canada in 1883, 1885, 1886, 1888 and 1891.1
In 1882 Widmann saw several large flocks, February 5 and
6, going northward at St. Louis. (Birds of Missouri, p. 84.)
Up to 1886 live Pigeons came into the Chicago market in
6
1 McCoun, John: Catalogue of Canadian Birds, 1900, Part 1, pp. 215, 216.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 457
large numbers, and were shipped all over the country for
Pigeon “shoots.”’ In 1881 twenty thousand live Passenger
Pigeons were killed at one trap-shooting tournament on
Coney Island, held under the auspices of the New York
Association for the Protection of Fish and Game. Many of
these birds were too young or too exhausted to fly. Thus,
sportsmen who could not participate in the slaughter of the
birds on their nesting grounds had them brought alive to the
doors of their club houses, and unwittingly shared in extermi-
nating the species. Mr. Ben O. Bush of Kalamazoo, Mich.,
states that the last Pigeons which he saw used for this purpose
were obtained by John Watson of Chicago. They came from
the Indian Territory in 1886; but this did not end the traffic.
It seems probable that a good many birds still gathered in
inaccessible regions of that territory during the winter.
In the spring of 1888, Messrs. William Brewster and
Jonathan Dwight, Jr., visited Michigan in search of the
Passenger Pigeon, and found that large flocks had passed
through Cadillac late in April, and that similar flocks had
been observed in nearly all the southern counties. This flight
was so large that some of the netters expressed the belief that
the Pigeons were as numerous as ever; and Brewster himself
expressed the opinion that the extermination of the species
was not then imminent, and that it might be saved, but con-
sidered it unlikely that effectual laws could be passed before
its extinction. The birds moved somewhere to the north to
breed, and were not seen nesting in any numbers in Michigan.
One of the netters brought intelligence of a flock at least
“eight acres” in extent, and many other smaller flocks were
reported. Many birds were found scattered about in the
woods, but no large nesting place was seen anywhere. After
that date comparatively few birds are recorded at any one
locality.
Many birds were sent to the eastern markets from the
southwest during the decade from 1878 to 1888, and even
later. Prof. George H. Beyer writes me that he saw several
large flocks of Passenger Pigeons at Rayne Station, La., in
1888, from which he killed three birds.
‘6
458 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Mr. H. T. Phillips of Detroit states that he used to see
and kill Pigeons every spring, ‘“‘up to ten years ago,” from the
middle of March to the middle of April, on the Mississippi
bayous. ‘This must have been in the latter years of the nine-
teenth century, at the time when the Pigeons were on the
verge of extinction.
A flock was seen in [linois in 1895, from which two speci-
mens were taken. At that time the netting of the birds had
been practically given up, and most of the dealers had seen no
Pigeons for two seasons. It finally ceased, on account of the
virtual extinction of the birds. How many barrels of Pigeons
were shipped to the markets during these final years? At
least one shipment of several barrels was condemned in New
York City as late as November, 1892 (J. H. Fleming: Ottawa
Naturalist, 1907, Vol. XX, p. 236), and several hundred dozens
came into the Boston market in December, 1892, and in
January, 1893. I saw some Pigeons in barrels there in 1892
or 1893, which probably were some of the lot recorded by
Brewster and noted by Fleming, who records the New York
shipment. All of these were from the Indian Territory.
Messrs. W. W. Judy & Co., marketmen of St. Louis, wrote
Mr. Ruthven Deane, in 1895, that the last Pigeons which
they received came from Siloam Springs, Ark., in 1893; they
had lost all track of the Pigeons since that time, and their
netters were lying idle.
The above paragraph epitomizes the history of Pigeon
destruction. Judy & Co. were perhaps the largest dealers in
Pigeons in the United States. The story of where their net-
ters worked after 1878, how many birds they took and what
markets they supplied, would explain only too well the so-
called “‘mystery”’ of the disappearance of the Passenger
Pigeon. It is evident from the foregoing that, although the
business of Pigeon netting was reduced much after 1878,
there were still some who followed it for at least fifteen years
thereafter. They pursued the birds as long as they could
find a flock so large that they could make a “killing.”
I have tried to get some information regarding the netting
of Pigeons by Judy & Co. Mr. Otto Widmann of St. Louis,
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 459
who kindly undertook to learn what he could about the
Pigeon shipments, sends an interesting letter, from which the
following extracts are taken: “In reply to your letter of
September 9, I am sorry I could not get what you wanted.
The firm was W. W. Judy & Co. Judy died twenty-five years
ago, and the firm was dissolved. One of the partners, Mr.
Farrell, died eight years afterwards, and there is at present
only one of the partners living, Mr. Dave Unger. The only
information that could be gotten from him was the interesting
statement that the Wild Pigeons have flown to Australia.
While trying to get the desired information, a game dealer,
F. H. Miller, stated that eight years ago [1902] he received
twelve dozen Wild Pigeons from Rogers, Ark., for which he
paid two and one-half dollars a dozen, and sold all to an
eastern firm for five dollars a dozen. His last Wild Pigeon, a
single individual, among some Ducks, was received four years
ago [1906], from Black River, Mo. As he is an old game
dealer, who has handled many Pigeons, there is no doubt
about the species; but exact dates were not obtainable.”
This closes the history of the Passenger Pigeon in our markets.
For the rest we must look to the millions of shotguns in the
United States, the natural enemies of the Pigeons, and the
accidents of migration. For every Pigeon that was shot and
recorded during the last part of the nineteenth century,
probably a hundred (perhaps a thousand) were shot and
eaten. Who was there to record them? Ornithologists may
be rather numerous in some of our cities, but they are very
rare in our western forests. We read in the press that only
a few years ago the mountaineers of the south killed hundreds
of Pigeons, and made potpies of them. This may or may
not be true; but for all practical purposes the close of the
nineteenth century saw the end of the Passenger Pigeon. We
are now (1911) trying to save it. Rewards aggregating thou-
sands of dollars are offered for the undisturbed nest and eggs;
but without result. They come twenty years too late.
A campaign of publicity has been conducted for two years,
under the energetic management of Prof. C. F. Hodge of
Clark University at Worcester, Mass.; the large rewards
460 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
offered have been published widely in the press of the United
States and Canada, and a great public interest in the search
has been aroused. Passenger Pigeons have been reported in
numbers from many parts of North America, but investiga-
tion of these communications has not resulted in producing
so much as a feather of the bird. This merely shows the unre-
liability of such statements, and how easily people may be
mistaken. There are three reports in 1911 that seem prom-
ising. In each case a single bird was seen and watched for
some time at very close range; but all assertions regarding
large flocks at this late date probably are based on observations
of Mourning Doves or Band-tailed Pigeons. The last Pas-
senger Pigeon known to exist was the lone captive whose
likeness faces page 433. This bird died September 1, 1914.
A large correspondence and a careful search through some
of the literature of the latter part of the century leads to the
belief that the Pigeons were common and in some cases abun-
dant in portions of the west from 1880 to 1890, though
gradually decreasing. After 1893 the reports became more
vague and less trustworthy, except in a few cases. Small
flocks were seen and specimens taken in the last decade of the
nineteenth century in Canada, and in Wisconsin, Nebraska,
Illinois, Indiana and other western States, and even in some
of the eastern States. Chief Pokagon reported a nesting of
Pigeons near the headwaters of the Au Sable River in Michigan
in 1896. In 1898 a flock of about two hundred birds was said
to have been seen in Michigan; one was taken; and in 1900
about fifty birds were reported.
While the big nestings of 1878 and 1881 in Michigan were
the last immense breeding places of Passenger Pigeons on
record, the species did not become extinct in a day or a year;
they were not wiped from the face of the earth by any great
catastrophe; they gradually became fewer and fewer for
twenty to twenty-five years after the date set by the pigeoners
as that of the last great migration.
Such records as I find of the last specimens actually taken
(not merely seen) in the States to which they refer indicate
how the species finally dropped out of sight: —
PLATE XVIII.
Upper figure, egg of Passenger Pigeon. Lower figure, eggs of
Mourning Dove, commonly mistaken for those of Passenger Pigeon.
(Photograph by Prof. C. F. Hodge.)
PLATE XIX.— PASSENGER PIGEON AND BIRDS COMMONLY
MISTAKEN FOR IT.
Mounted specimen of Band-tailed Pigeon, left; Passenger Pigeon, center ;
and Mourning Dove, right. (Photograph by Prof. C. F. Hodge.)
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 46]
1882-83. — Texas, a flight seen in winter of 1882-83 near Lampasas that
was three and one-half hours in passing. Many killed. No recent
record (A. S. Eldredge.)
1885. — New Hampshire, Concord (G. M. Allen, Birds of New Hampshire).
1885. — South Carolina, immature female, November 21 (Arthur T. Wayne,
Auk, 1906, p. 61).
1886. — Rhode Island, specimen taken by Walter A. Angell in 1886 or 1887.
T. M. Flanagan took about a dozen at Warwick in 1885 or 1886 (John
H. Flanagan).
1889. — District of Columbia, October 19 (W. W. Cooke, Proc., Biological
Society of Washington, 1908, p. 116); specimens not taken.
1889. — Connecticut, Portland, young male, October 1 (John H. Sage);
specimen preserved.
1889. — Province of Quebec, Tadousac, specimen taken July 20, 1889; now in
collection of Dr. Jonathan Dwight, Jr., New York (J. H. Fleming, Ottawa
Naturalist, Vol. XXII, 1907, p. 236).
1893. — Indiana, pair and nest taken by C. B. Brown of Chicago in spring
of 1893 at English Lake; nest and eggs preserved in his collection
(Ruthven Deane, Auk, 1895, p. 299).
1893. — Arkansas, Siloam Springs, last shipment live Pigeons to W. W.
Judy & Co., St. Louis (Ruthven Deane, Auk, 1895, p. 298).
1894. — North Carolina, Buncombe County, female taken by J. S. Cairns,
October 20 (C. S. Brimley.)
1894. — Massachusetts, an adult female killed by Neil Casey at Melrose,
April 12, 1894; specimen preserved and mounted; now first recorded.
1895. — Louisiana, Mandeville, near New Orleans, January 26, 1895, two
taken out of a flock of five by Dr. J. H. Lamb; one an immature male
(Prof. Geo. E. Beyer).
1895. — Illinois, Lake Forest, August 7, young female in collection of John
F. Ferry (Ruthven Deane, Auk, 1896, p. 81).
1895. — Nebraska, Sarpy County, one killed out of fifteen or twenty, No-
vember 9, by Hon. Edgar Howard of Papillon, five miles southeast of
that place (Lawrence Bruner, Nebraska Birds, p. 84).
1895. — Pennsylvania, Canadensis, Munroe County, specimen shot, Octo-
ber 23, by Mr. Geo. Stewart of Philadelphia, and now in his possession
(Witmer Stone).
1896. — New Jersey, Englewood, June 23, immature female taken by
C. Irving Wood and mounted by J. Ullrich (F. M. Chapman, Auk,
1896, p. 341).
1896. — Wisconsin, Delavan Lake, N. Hollister killed an immature male
September 8, 1896 (Auk, 1896, p. 341); last Wisconsin record backed
by a specimen.
1896. — Missouri, Attic, pair killed from flock of fifty by Chas. H. Holden,
Jr., December 17; in collection of Ruthven Deane (Auk, 1897. p. 317).
462 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
1897. — Iowa, Lee County, September 7, William G. Praeger shot a lone
immature male (R. M. Anderson, Birds of Iowa, 1907, p. 239).
1898. — Manitoba, Winnipeg, adult male taken; specimen mounted by Geo.
E. Atkinson, Lake Winnepegosis, April 14 (J. H. Fleming, Auk, 1903,
p. 66). Probably not the same reported by Mr. Ernest Thompson
Seton as taken by J. G. Rosser at Winnepegosis September 13. Dates
differ. (Auk, 1908, p. 452.)
1898. — Michigan, Chestnut Ridge, Wayne County, immature bird, mounted
by C. Campion, Detroit, September 14 (J. H. Fleming, Auk, 1903, p.
66).
1898. — Kentucky, Owensboro, immature male, now in the Smithsonian
Institution, July 27 (J. H. Fleming, Auk, 1908, p. 237).
1900. — Ohio, Sargents, March 24 (Dawson and Jones, Birds of Ohio, Vol.
II., p. 427); specimen shot by a boy and mounted by a Mrs. Barnes.
1900. — Wisconsin, Babcock, September, specimen not preserved, killed by
Neal Brown while hunting with Emerson Hough (W. B. Mershon,
The Passenger Pigeon, p. 154). The accuracy of this record has been
questioned.
1902. — Arkansas, F. H. Miller, of St. Louis received twelve dozen from
Rogers, Ark. (Otto Widmann).
1904. — Maine, one killed at Bar Harbor, mounted by J. Bert Baxter of
Bangor (Harry Merrill). Recorded by Glover M. Allen in his List of
the Aves, 1909, Fauna of N. E., II., Bost. Soe. Nat. Hist.
1906. — Missouri, Black River, F. H. Miller of St. Louis received one bird
at his market in St. Louis, shipped from Black River. (It will be noted
that the last previous record for Missouri was in 1896.)
1907. — Province of Quebec, one bird taken by Mr. Pacificque Couture of
St. Vincent, P. Q., September 23, 1907. The bird was mounted by Mr.
A. Learo, taxidermist of Montreal, and identified by him. (I have
been unable to find Mr. Couture and get further particulars, as he is
no longer at St. Vincent. This record may not be authentic.)
The records from 1898 to 1907 appear to be authentic, but
in the few cases where the specimens were preserved I have
been unable to locate them. We have no record since 1898
that can be substantiated by a specimen preserved in any
museum.
It is only just to state that many Passenger Pigeons
probably were seen at later dates than some of those given.
Where flocks or single birds were watched by competent
observers for hours through a glass, as they were in more than
one instance, there can be no question of their identity; but
the taking of the specimen is the only tangible proof that
satisfies the ornithologist in such a case as this, and for that
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 463
reason the above records are confined mainly to those cases
where at least one bird was taken. I cannot leave this sub-
ject without referring to various canards, some of which have
been taken seriously by too many intelligent people.
Efforts have been made to account for the supposed sudden
disappearance of the Pigeons by tales of cyclonic sea disturb-
ances or lake storms, which are supposed to have drowned
practically all of them. Undoubtedly thousands of Pigeons
were destroyed occasionally, during their flights, in storms or
fogs at sea or on the Great Lakes. There are many rather
unsatisfactory and hazy reports of such occurrences. The
earliest of these is recorded by Kalm, who says, in his account
of the Passenger Pigeon, referred to on page 435, that in
March, 1740, about a week after the disappearance of a great
multitude of Pigeons in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, a sea
captain named Amies, who arrived at Philadelphia, stated
that he had seen the sea covered with dead Pigeons, in some
cases for three French miles. Other ship captains, arriving
later, corroborated this tale. It was said that from that date
no such great multitudes of Pigeons were seen in Pennsylvania.
Kalm published this in 1759, but after that date the Pigeons
again came to Pennsylvania in great numbers; which shows
that the drowning of this multitude had no permanent effect
on the numbers of the birds. This story in some form has
cropped up at intervals ever since.
Giraud, in his Birds of Long Island (1844), states that he
has ‘‘ heard” of great numbers of Pigeons floating on the water
which were seen by shipmasters. The old legend regarding
the dead Pigeons drifting ashore near Cape Ann, from which
occurrence Pigeon Cove is supposed to have received its name,
is possibly authentic; for the birds probably crossed Ipswich
Bay in their flight to the coast of Maine, and may have been
overtaken by a fog, become confused and fallen into the water,
or they may have been blown to sea and drowned. Neverthe-
less, this catastrophe did not wipe out the entire species, for it
had too wide a range. Schoolcraft (1821), while walking along
some parts of the shore of Lake Michigan, saw a great num-
ber of the skeletons and half-consumed bodies of Pigeons,
464 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
which he says are overtaken often by tempests in crossing the
lake, and ‘‘ drowned in entire flocks.”” Vast numbers of Eagles
and Buzzards were seen feeding upon them.
Brewster was informed by Mr. 8. 5S. Stevens of Cadillac,
Mich., that on one occasion an immense flock of Pigeons
became bewildered in a fog while crossing Crooked Lake, and,
descending, struck the water and perished by thousands.
This might easily happen to young birds. They might
become bewildered in a fog on a large body of water, and fly
about until, weary and exhausted, they fell into the water;
but Mr. Stevens says that the old, experienced birds rose
above the fog, and not one was drowned.
Mr. E. Osborn states that he has seen “big bodies of
Pigeons” which were drowned off Sleeping Bear Point while
trying to cross Lake Michigan.
Capt. Alexander McDougall of Duluth writes, February 8,
1905, that, while he was captain of the steamer “‘ Japan” on
Lake Superior, in 1872, the exhausted Pigeons in foggy weather
and at night used to alight on his boat in great numbers. He
remembers having caught several by hand.
Mr. Ben O. Bush states that at the last Petoskey nesting,
in 1881, when the nests were built and the eggs were laid, a
big wind storm with sleet came up just at dusk; the birds left,
and he believes that they were swallowed up by a fog and
storm on Lake Michigan. At any rate, they did not return.
He says that he has “heard tell of the beach being strewn for
“miles with dead Pigeons.’’ He supposes that the storm wiped
them out, and that the netters afterwards cleaned up what
were left.
Mr. C. H. Ames of Boston advances the theory that the
Pigeons went south, and were overwhelmed by a storm on the
Gulf of Mexico; and states that years ago he read an account,
either in or quoted from a New Orleans newspaper, giving
the story of several ship captains and sailors who had sailed
over ‘‘ leagues of water covered with dead Pigeons.”
The following story was very likely derived from the same
source. Mr. G. C. Tremaine Ward says (1901) that Mr. 8. D.
1 Schoolcraft, Henry R. L.: Narrative Journal of Travels from Detroit Northwest, 1821, p. 381.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 465
Woodruff of St. Catherines, Ont., Can., asserts that several
shipmasters say that immense numbers of Wild Pigeons
perished in the Gulf of Mexico, ‘* being exhausted by contrary
winds and dense fogs.”” This gentleman also avers that Mr.
Woodruff states that several shipmasters saw myriads of
Pigeons alight on their vessels, and had to cast them off into
the sea. (Auk, 1901, p. 192,—no names or dates given.)
This is too indefinite to be of any value as evidence. Also,
there is no authentic record that the Passenger Pigeon ever
crossed the Gulf of Mexico. This species did not go so far
south, and, although there is a single record of its occurrence
in Cuba, it has not been seen in great numbers near the Gulf
coast for forty years. The Pigeons which once commonly
crossed these waters from Florida to Cuba in large numbers,
belonged to another species, the White-crowned Pigeon
(Columba leucocephala). Such tales about the drowning of
birds in the Gulf of Mexico may have referred to some of the
Plovers, or *‘ Prairie Pigeons,”’ as they were called in the west,
which crossed the gulf annually in large numbers.
The Passenger Pigeon was not exterminated, or nearly
exterminated, by drowning, soon after the nesting at Petoskey
in 1881; for, as hereinbefore stated, there was an immense
flight in Texas the ensuing winter, a large flight crossed Michi-
gan to the north in 1888, and they were seen and taken in
numbers in many places in the United States and Canada for
vears subsequent to the date of the Petoskey nesting of 1881.
The statement recently published in a magazine article, that
the Pigeons have gone to South America, is absolutely without
any foundation in fact. This bird is unknown on the South
American continent. The statement that they have gone to
Australia is hardly worth refuting.
The stories of the wholesale destruction of the Pigeons by
snowstorms in the north possibly have some foundation.
Northward migrations of Pigeons often occurred very early in
the year, and the first nesting of a season was sometimes com-
pleted while snow still remained. On March 25, 1830, a flight
of Pigeons was overtaken by a high wind and snowstorm near
Albany, N. Y. Twenty-eight inches of snow fell, and the
466 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
birds were overwhelmed, and taken “in great abundance” by
the people.!
Some of the Pigeons may have been driven by persecution
to the far north to breed, in the latter part of the nineteenth
century, and they may have been destroyed by unseasonable
storms, for many species are subject to periodical reduction by
the elements; but the whole history of the last thirty years of
the existence of the Passenger Pigeon goes to prove that the
birds were so persistently molested that they finally lost their
coherence, were scattered far and wide, and became extinct
mainly through constant persecution by man. While they
existed in large colonies, the orphaned young were taken care
of by their neighbors. Mr. E. T. Martin, in a pamphlet
entitled Among the Pigeons, which was published in full in the
American Field, January 25, 1879, states that one of his men
shot six female Pigeons that came to feed a single squab in
one nest. (Comment on this shooting is unnecessary.) This
communal habit of feeding preserved the species so long as the
birds nested in large colonies; but when they became scattered
the orphaned young starved when their parents were killed.
The Passenger Pigeon was not a suspicious bird, as birds
go; it was easily taken. It reproduced slowly, laid but few
eggs, and when its innumerable multitudes were reduced and
its flocks were dispersed, the end came rapidly.
It often is asked how it was possible for man to kill them
all. It was not possible, nor was it requisite that he should do
‘so, in order to exterminate them. All that was required to
bring about this result was to destroy a large part of the
young birds hatched each year. Nature cut off the rest. She
always eliminates a large share of the young of all creatures.
The greater part of the Pigeons taken in summer and fall were
young birds. The squabs were sought because they brought a
high price in the market. The flock mentioned by Mr. Van
Cleef (see page 452), which nested in Missouri, Michigan and
New York the same year, was followed by the pigeoners, who
destroyed about all the squabs at each nesting. The young
when out of the nest were less experienced than the adults,
1 Munsell, Joel: Annals of Albany, 1858, Vol. IX, p. 206.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 467
and therefore more easily taken. Sometimes the Pigeons were
so harassed that all their nestings were broken up, and few
young were raised that season; thus the natural increase was
practically cut off, and constant diminution was assured. Ex-
termination must have resulted under such conditions, even if
no man ever killed an adult Passenger Pigeon. The Pigeons
were not immortal. Even if undisturbed by man, they “ gave
up the ghost” in‘a few years; but they were not undisturbed.
No adequate attempt to protect them was made until they
practically had disappeared. Whenever a law looking toward
the conservation of these birds was proposed in any State,
its opponents argued before the legislative committees that
the Pigeons ‘needed no protection;” that their numbers
were so vast, and that they ranged over such a great extent of
country, that they were amply able to take care of them-
selves. This argument defeated all measures that might have
given adequate protection to this species, as it has since
defeated proposed laws for the conservation of wild-fowl and
other migratory birds. That is why extinction finally came
quickly. We did our best to exterminate both old and young,
and we succeeded. The explanation is so simple that all talk
of “mystery ” seems sadly out of place here. (Since the above
history was written, Mr. Albert Hazen Wright has published
a compilation of Passenger Pigeon notes from early writers,
many of which are not included here.')
Ornithologists believe that the migrations of this Pigeon
were made mainly in pursuit of food, and with little reference
to the seasons of the year. Undoubtedly, however, the ten-
dency was to migrate north in the spring and south in the fall,
like other birds of passage.
Some of the pigeoners say that the Pigeons nested in the
southern States in winter; but of this there is no authentic
record.
Lawson (1709), in his History of Carolina, says that the
Pigeons came in great numbers in the winter: and he was told
by the Indians that they nested in the Allegheny Mountains.’
1 Auk, 1910, pp. 428-443; 1911, pp. 346-366, 427-449.
2 Lawson, John: History of Carolina, 1860, p. 231.
468 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
They nested as far south at least as Pennsylvania, Tennessee
and Kentucky, but usually most of them bred in the north.
The accounts of the early settlers in Massachusetts show
that there was a northward migration of Pigeons through New
England in March, and they sometimes lingered about Hudson
Bay until December, feeding on the berries of the juniper.
The roosts of the Pigeons were so extensive and the birds fre-
quenting them were so numerous that it was necessary for
them to fly long distances daily in order to secure food enough
for their wants. In migration their flight was very high and
swift. Audubon estimates that they flew a mile a minute,
and others have asserted that they sometimes travelled one
hundred miles an hour. This was probably an exaggeration.
I remember standing, as a boy, on the shore of an arm of
Lake Quinsigamond, when a small flock of Pigeons, crossing
the water, made directly for me. I never had killed a Pigeon,
and intended to secure a specimen; but the flock, in its arrow-
like flight, descending directly toward me, passed over my
head with inconceivable velocity, and reached the woods
behind me before the gun could be brought to bear.
In searching for food in a country where it was plentiful,
the birds flew low, and, upon reaching good feeding ground,
swung in large circles while examining the place. Some flocks
were composed of young birds, others were mostly males, and
still others almost entirely females.
Their roosting places were preferably in large and heavy
timber, sometimes in swamps. In most of the larger roosts,
the trees, undergrowth and all vegetation on the ground were -
soon killed by a heavy deposit of guano. About sunset the
Pigeons in all the country for many miles around began to
move toward the roost, and soon after sundown they com-
menced to arrive in immense numbers, some from a distance
of one hundred miles or more. Birds poured in from all
directions until after midnight, and left the roost again at
sunrise.
Audubon says that a messenger whom he sent out from a
Pigeon roost reported to him that the uproar of the birds
arriving could be heard three miles away. A most remarkable
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 469
attribute of the Pigeon was its disregard of the presence of
human beings in its roosting and nesting places. Any one
who entered quietly one of these spots when the birds were
there would be surrounded by the unsuspicious creatures in a
few minutes. The nests formerly were placed in trees of great
height, in some locality near water, where food was plentiful;
but after the primeval forests were cut off, the Pigeons nested
sometimes in low trees. ‘This contributed to their doom.
The best description of the nesting of these birds that I have
seen Is given by Chief Pokagon, in the Chautauquan (Novem-
ber, 1895, Vol. XXII, No. 20). He was a full-blooded Indian,
and the last Pottawottomi chief of the Pokagon band. His
account as quoted by Mr. Mershon, follows: —
It was proverbial with our fathers that if the Great Spirit in His wis-
dom could have created a more elegant bird in plumage, form, and move-
ment, He never did. When a young man I have stood for hours admiring
the movements of these birds. I have seen them fly in unbroken lines from
the horizon, one line succeeding another from morning until night, moving
their unbroken columns like an army of trained soldiers pushing to the
front, while detached bodies of these birds appeared in different parts of
the heavens, pressing forward in haste like raw recruits preparing for battle.
At other times [ have seen them move in one unbroken column for hours
across the sky, like some great river, ever varying in hue; and as the mighty
stream, sweeping on at sixty miles an hour, reached some deep valley, it
would pour its living mass headlong down hundreds of feet, sounding as
though a whirlwind was abroad in the land. I have stood by the grandest
waterfall of America and regarded the descending torrents in wonder and
astonishment, yet never have my astonishment, wonder and admiration
been so stirred as when I have witnessed these birds drop from their course
like meteors from heaven.
. . . About the middle of May, 1850, while in the fur trade, I was camp-
ing on the head waters of the Manistee River in Michigan. One morning
on leaving my wigwam I was startled by hearing a gurgling, rumbling sound,
as though an army of horses laden with sleigh bells was advancing through
the deep forests toward me. As I listened more intently, I concluded that
instead of the tramping of horses it was distant thunder; and yet the morning
was clear, calm and beautiful. Nearer and nearer came the strange com-
mingling sounds of sleigh bells, mixed with the rumbling of an approach-
ing storm. While I gazed in wonder and astonishment, I beheld moving
toward me in an unbroken front millions of pigeons, the first I had seen
that season. They passed like a cloud through the branches of the high
trees, through the underbrush and over the ground, apparently overturning
470 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
every leaf. Statue-like I stood, half-concealed by cedar boughs. They
fluttered all about me, lighting on my head and shoulders; gently I caught
two in my hands and carefully concealed them under my blanket.
I now began to realize they were mating, preparatory to nesting. It
was an event which I had long hoped to witness; so I sat down and carefully
watched their movements, amid the greatest tumult. I tried to understand
their strange language, and why they all chatted in concert. In the course
of the day the great on-moving mass passed by me, but the trees were still
filled with them sitting in pairs in convenient crotches of the limbs, now
and then gently fluttering their half-spread wings and uttering to their
mates those strange, bell-like wooing notes which I had mistaken for the
ringing of bells in the distance.
On the third day after, this chattering ceased and all were busy carry-
ing sticks with which they were building nests in the same crotches of the
limbs they had occupied in pairs the day before. On the morning of the
fourth day their nests were finished and eggs laid. The hen birds occupied
the nests in the morning, while the male birds went out into the surround-
ing country to feed, returning about 10 o’clock, taking the nests, while the
hens went out to feed, returning about 3 o’clock. Again changing nests,
the male birds went out the second time to feed, returning at sundown.
The same routine was pursued each day until the young ones were hatched
and nearly half grown, at which time all the parent birds left the brooding
grounds about daylight. On the morning of the eleventh day, after the
eggs were laid, I found the nesting grounds strewn with egg shells, convinc-
ing me that the young were hatched. In thirteen days more the parent
birds left their young to shift for themselves, flying to the east about sixty
miles, when they again nested. The female lays but one egg during the
same nesting.
Both sexes secrete in their crops milk or curd with which they feed
their young, until they are nearly ready to fly, when they stuff them with
mast and such other raw material as they themselves eat, until their crops
exceed their bodies in size, giving to them an appearance of two birds with
one head. Within two days after the stuffing they become a mass of fat —
“a squab.” At this period the parent bird drives them from the nests to
take care of themselves, while they fly off within a day or two, sometimes
hundreds of miles, and again nest.
It has been well established that these birds look after and take care of
all orphan squabs whose parents have been killed or are missing. ‘These
birds are long-lived, having been known to live twenty-five years caged.
When food is abundant they nest each month in the year.
It seems improbable, however, that they bred in winter.
The nesting usually occupied four to five weeks. The female,
when sitting, never left the nest until the flight of males
returned, when she slipped away, just as her mate reached the
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 47\
nest. Thus the eggs were kept covered all the time. The
adult birds never ate the nuts and acorns in the immediate
vicinity of the nesting place, but went to a distance for their
food, and left the mast in the neighborhood for the young to
feed on when they came out of the nest. It is said that for
miles around there were no caterpillars or inchworms in the
oak woods for several years after a nesting, as the adults
secured practically all of them for the young, thereby pro-
tecting the forests against their insect enemies. When the
young were first pushed out of the nest by the parents, they
went to the ground and fed mainly in the lower parts of the
woods until they became expert in flying. They passed over
the ground, the lower ranks continually flying over those in
front, scratching out all the edible material, those flying over-
head striking off the nuts as they flew by. The young birds
were able to reproduce their kind in about six months.
Chief Pokagon asserts that while the old birds were feed-
ing they always had guards on duty, to give an alarm in case
of danger. The watch bird as it took flight beat its wings
together in quick succession, with a sound like the roll of a
snare drum. Quick as thought each bird repeated the alarm
with a thundering sound, as the flock struggled to rise, leading
a novice to imagine that a cyclone was coming.
In feeding, the birds were very voracious. They scratched
among the leaves and unearthed every nut or acorn, some-
times almost choking in their efforts to swallow an unusually
large specimen. During the breeding season they were fond of
salty mud and water, and the pigeoners, learning of this, were
accustomed to attract the birds to their death by salting down
‘*mud beds,” to which the poor Pigeons flocked in multitudes,
and over which, when they were assembled, the pigeoners
threw their nets.
The food of the Pigeons consisted mainly of vegetable
matter, except for the grasshoppers, caterpillars and other
insects, worms, snails, etc., which they ate, and which they fed
to their young. Acorns, beech nuts and chestnuts, with pine and
hemlock seeds, were among their principal staples of supply.
They also fed on the seeds of the elm, maple and other forest
472 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
trees. Buckwheat, hempseed, Indian corn and other grains,
cherries, mulberries, hollyberries, hackberries, wild straw-
berries, raspberries and huckleberries, and tender shoots of
vegetation, all attracted them. They sometimes went to the
Barren Grounds in the far north in vast numbers, to feed on
blueberries. They often descended upon the fall-sown wheat
and rye fields in such numbers that the farmers had to watch
their fields, or lose their crops. Oats and peas were favorite
foods. No doubt they also fed largely on the seeds of weeds,
as the Mourning Doves, Bob-whites and many other terres-
trial feeders do; but I find no record of this. They were fond
of currants, cranberries, and poke berries, and no doubt of
many other kinds of berries, and rose hips. We know little of
their food habits, for no scientific investigation of their food
ever was made.
EXTIRPATED SPECIES.
TRUMPETER SWAN (Olor buccinator).
Average Length. — About 63 inches.
Adult. — Bill longer than head; feathers of forehead ending in semi-ellip-
tical outline; nostrils in basal half of bill; extent of wings about 8 feet,
rarely near 10; plumage white, occasionally a rusty wash on head; iris
brown; bill, lores and feet black.
Immature in Winter. — Gray; rusty on head and neck; bill dusky, or black
varied with purplish and flesh color; legs and feet yellowish brown;
claws blackish; webs blackish brown.
Nest. — Of grass, leaves, down and feathers, on dry ground.
Eggs. — Five to seven, 4 to 4.50 by 2.50 to 3; chalky white, granulated.
Notes. — A resonant trumpeting.
Season. — Formerly spring and fall.
Range. — Formerly the North American continent, rare in Alaska, breed-
ing from the northern United States to near the Arctic Ocean, and from
the Rocky Mountains to Hudson Bay, and wintering mainly in the
southern States and south to lower California. Now found only in the
interior; still breeds in interior British Provinces.
History.
This splendid bird, the largest of North American wild-
fowl, is believed to have visited Massachusetts and other sea-
board States in some numbers during their early history.
Some of the settlers wrote of Swans that were met with on the
‘younxe Ajweau pue pazeduiyxa mou ‘pur|Suy MAN YSnoiy} pozesBiw Ayiauo 4
"NYMS YALIdNNYL— "XX JLW1d
i Be AO 7 7 a
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 473
Atlantic seaboard, but few of them distinguished between the
species.
Lawson (1709) writing of the natural history of Carolina,
states that there were “‘ two sorts” of Swans. One they called
“trompeters, because of a sort of trompeting noise they
make.” These were the larger, and came in great flocks in
the winter, keeping mostly in the fresh rivers. The others
they called ‘“‘hoopers” (in remembrance of the English
Whooping Swan), and these were smaller and kept more in
salt water.!
Turnbull (1869) includes the Trumpeter among the birds
of east Pennsylvania and New Jersey, ‘on the authority of
reliable sportsmen who have shot it on Chesapeake and Dela-
ware Bays.” Thus it seems that the Trumpeter, now con-
sidered a bird of the interior, was taken on the Atlantic coast
as late as the latter half of the last century.
In the Representation of the New Netherland (1650), a
paper signed by twelve prominent citizens, the statement is
made that the Swans of the country are ‘full as large”’
as those of the Netherlands, and they are named among
the abundant birds of this region near the mouth of the
Hudson.’
In the seventeenth century great flocks of Swans frequented
the Atlantic seaboard from New England as far south as
Georgia, some of which were undoubtedly of this species.
The Trumpeter is noted by Dr. C. Hart Merriam as probably
formerly occurring in the vicinity of East Windsor Hill, Conn.,
where an old hunter, who knew the bird well, reported that he
had seen a flock once, and had heard their notes on another
occasion. Belknap (1792) records it as a migrant in New
Hampshire. He says “it is certain that our swan is heard to
make a sound resembling that of a trumpet.”? ‘One of
them,” he asserts, ‘has been known to weigh 36 Ib. and to be
six feet in length from bill to the feet when stretched.” Here
the size alone would seem to identify the bird.4
1 Lawson, John: History of Carolina, 1860, p. 240.
2 Narratives of New Netherland, edited by J. Franklin Jameson, 1909, p. 297.
3 Belknap, Jeremy: History of New Hampshire, 1792, Vol. III, p. 167.
4 [bid., p. 166.
474 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Undoubtedly the Trumpeter passed in migration from
Long Island Sound and the mouth of the Hudson into Canada
and the Hudson Bay country, where it bred, going through
some of the New England States on the way north or on its
southward migration. So late as the sixth decade of the nine-
teenth century it was still to be met with in Ontario, Can.,
where, so Fleming states, Professor Hincks described a sup-
posed new species of Swan in 1864, which proved to be the
young of the Trumpeter, and between 1863 and 1866 he was
able to get six local birds to examine.’
Morton (1632) stated that there was ‘“‘ greate store” of
Swans at their seasons in the Merrimac River and in other
parts of the country. Some of the Swans mentioned as fre-
quenting the fresh-water ponds and rivers probably were of
this species, and several small bodies of water in Massachu-
setts have derived their names from the Swan. A place called
“Swan Holt” by the first settlers of Carver, Mass., probably
denotes the visits of this species. Here, before the ice was
broken up in the ponds, the Swan, ‘‘ the earliest harbinger of
spring,’ found an open place among the osier holts.? The
Trumpeter was noted because of its early appearance in
spring. It often appeared in March, before ponds were open.
In the History of Harvard, Mass., it is stated that the
Swan occasionally was seen in colonial times, and gave name
to the long swamp where Still River has its source.*
_ The Trumpeter Swan long ago disappeared from the New
England seaboard, except as a mere straggler; so long ago that
there is but one specimen extant from New England, and only
one definite record or date of the capture of a specimen here.
Since the first edition of this book was written Mr. C. Wm.
Beebe has recorded a Trumpeter from Lewiston, Me., captured
alive on November 25, 1901.4. The bird formerly was com-
mon from New York west to the Pacific coast States. It
bred in Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Montana and Idaho, and
the northwest provinces, and probably in Minnesota, Iowa and
farther east before the time of ornithological records. De Kay
1 Fleming, James H.: Auk, 1906, p. 446.
2 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV, 2d ser., p. 274.
3 Nourse, Henry S.: The History of Harvard, Mass., from 1732 to 1893, ed. of 1894, p. 73.
4 Coale, Henry K.: Auk, 1915, p. 87.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 475
writes that hunters informed him that Swans remained all
through the year in the remoter portions of New York State.
If this were true they probably were Trumpeters, as the
Whistling Swan summered in the far north. David Pieter-
zoon De Vries, the Patroon, settled on Staten Island. In April,
1639, he went in his sloop to Fort Orange (now Albany), where
he arrived April 30, and left on his return May 14. In his
account of the trip he states that there were great numbers of
Turkeys and water-fowl, such as Swans, Geese, Teal, ete., all
along the river.t. If Swans were seen in numbers upon the
river in May, they must have been either non-breeding birds
or breeding in that region. All accounts agree that Swans
came very early in spring, that the Whistling Swan moved
north as fast as the ice broke up, and that only the Trumpeter
Swan ever remained to breed in that latitude.
The Trumpeter has succumbed to incessant persecution in
all parts of its range, and its total extinction is now only a
matter of years. Persecution drove it from the northern
parts of its winter range to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico;
from all the southern portion of its breeding range toward the
shores of the Arctic Ocean; and from the Atlantic and Pacific
slopes toward the interior. Now it almost has disappeared
from the Gulf States. Mr. A.5S. Eldredge, who has a ranch at
Lampasas, Tex., writes that eighteen years ago there were
seventy-five to one hundred Swans there. Not one has been
seen for three years.’
A Swan seen at any time of the year in most parts of the
United States is the signal for every man with a gun to pursue
it. The breeding Swans of the United States have been extir-
pated, and the bird is hunted, even in its farthest northern
haunts, by the natives, who capture it in summer, when it has
molted its primaries and is unable to fly. The Swan lives to
1 Munsell, Joel: Annals of Albany, 1858, Vol. IX, p. 126.
2 The Trumpeter is disappearing or has disappeared from the Pacific slope as well as from the
Atlantic. It wasonce the prevailing Swan in California and was plentiful in Oregon and Washington.
Suckley in 1853-54 saw immense flocks on the Columbia River (Pac. R.R. Surv., Vol. XII, Part 2,
p. 249). Newberry also saw them there (Jbid., Vol. VI, Part 4, p. 100). Murphy (1882) states that they
were so common on the Columbia that he doubts if one would bring more than fifty or seventy-five
cents (Murphy, John Mortimer: American Game Bird Shooting, 1882, p. 231). It is now stated that
there is no well-authenticated instance of the recent occurrence of a Trumpeter in the State of Wash-
ington (Dawson and Bowles: Birds of Washington, 1909, p. 841).
476 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
a great age. The older birds are about as tough and unfit for
food as an old horse. Only the younger are savory, and the
gunners might well have spared the adult birds, but it was
“sport”? to kill them and fashion called for swan’s-down.
The large size of this bird and its conspicuousness have served,
as in the case of the Whooping Crane, to make it a shining
mark, and the trumpetings that were once heard over the
breadth of a great continent, as the long converging lines
drove on from zone to zone, will soon be heard no more. In
the ages to come, like the call of the Whooping Crane, they
will be locked in the silence of the past.
At the approach of the frost king, the Trumpeter leaves its
breeding grounds in the northwest and moves southward in
triangular flock formation. The flocks move on like those of
the Canada Goose, led by some old male, who, when tired of
breasting the full force of the air currents, calls for relief, and
falls back into the ranks, giving way to another. In migra-
tion they fly at such immense heights that often the human
eye fails to find them, but even then their resonant, discordant
trumpetings can be plainly heard. When seen with a glass at
that giddy height in the heavens, crossing the sky in their
exalted and unswerving flight, sweeping along at a speed
exceeding that of the fastest express train, traversing a conti-
nent on the wings of the wind, their long lines glistening like
silver in the bright sunlight, they present the grandest and
_ most impressive spectacle in bird life to be found on this con-
tinent. When at last they find their haven of rest they swing
in wide, majestic circuits, spying out their landfall, until, their
spiral reconnoissance ended and their apprehensions quite
allayed, they sail gently down to the grateful waters, to rest,
drink, bathe and feed at ease.
Fifty years ago in the far west great flocks of these birds, a
quarter of a mile in length, were seen massed like blankets of
snow on the river banks. On the water they move lightly
and gracefully. Their long necks and great size, taken in
connection with the mirage effects, sometimes seen in their
haunts, deceive the eye, until in the distance they present the
appearance of a fleet of ships under sail.
Lyin
a eae \k
aA Wane (/ \ A Ger
Wa seco" OWNS Ra
PLATE XXl.— WHOOPING CRANE.
Once a migrant through New England; now extirpated and nearly
extinct. (From a drawing by Annie E. Chase:)
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 477
The Trumpeter is well able to protect itself and its young
from the smaller prowlers, for 1t can deliver a terrible blow
with its powerful wing. Although it lays five to seven eggs,
some mortality must overtake the young, for comparatively
few young birds of the year are seen in the fall flights. The
Bald Eagle sometimes surprises it in flight, and, hurtling from
above, strikes it to the earth; otherwise it seems to have few
natural enemies powerful and swift enough to destroy it.
Little is known definitely about the food of the Trumpeter.
Dr. Hatch says that it feeds chiefly on vegetation, both
aquatic and terrestrial. It feeds like all Swans, by immersing
its head and neck and taking its food from the bottom. Its
food consists largely of water plants, but it also takes shell-
fish and crustaceans.
WHOOPING CRANE (Grus americana).
Length. — 50 inches or more; extent of wings about 90.
Adult. — Bill stout and slightly curved; head bare and red on top and on
each side to below the eyes, except for scattering hairs; plumage pure
white, with black primaries and primary coverts; bill waxy yellow; iris
yellow; legs and feet black. This is one of the largest North American
birds, far exceeding in size the Great Blue Heron.
Immature. — Head feathered, portions that finally become naked indicated
by dark feathers; general plumage whitish, stained with rusty brown.
Nest. — On ground in marsh or prairie.
Eggs. —'Two or sometimes three, about 4 inches in length; light brownish
drab, rather sparsely marked, except at great end, with large irregular
spots of dull chocolate brown and lighter reddish brown, and other pale
obscure shell markings; shell rough.
Season. — Possibly this species formerly resided in Massachusetts through-
out the spring, summer and fall, but probably came here only irregu-
larly in the spring and fall migrations.
Range. — Formerly the greater part of North America, breeding from the
northern United States northward, is now found only in the interior
of the continent far from the shores of any ocean, sparsely and irreg-
ularly distributed; formerly migrated along the Atlantic seaboard, from
Florida to New England at least.. It followed up the valley of the Hud-
son, and was common about the Great Lakes and from there to the fur
countries. It wintered in the southern States, from Florida to Texas
and Mexico, and still winters in some of them. It is now nearing
extinction.
478 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
History.
The Whooping Crane was named and described by Linné
in the eighteenth century.! Previous to that time all three
American species were lumped together as Cranes.
Many of the narratives of the early voyagers and settlers
tell of Cranes migrating and nesting along the Atlantic coast.
During the first century after the discovery of the country,
Cranes evidently were more or less numerous all along this
coast, from Florida to New England, but the word has been
used so frequently to denote the larger Herons that one might
be inclined to place little faith in the statements of sailors and
colonists were it not for two facts: (1) In those days Cranes
were well known and conspicuous birds in England and other
countries of which these voyagers were natives, or which they
had visited, and undoubtedly they were familiar with these
birds, and could distinguish them from Herons. (2) In the
lists of birds given by these early adventurers Herons,
‘**Hearnes”’ and ‘“‘ Hernshaws”’ or ‘‘ Heronshaws,” “‘ Bitterns ”
and ‘‘Egrets”’ or “‘Egrepes”’ are also referred to, showing
that they distinguished the Cranes from the Herons. The
common European Heron was a large species (resembling the
Great Blue Heron of America) which, at that time, was called
the Hernshaw, Hearneshaw or Heronshaw. It is often impos-
sible to determine which species of Crane was referred to in
these early narratives and lists of birds, as usually no descrip-
tion is given; but now and then we find a reference to a bird
that must have been the Whooping Crane. Since this bird is
now a bird of the interior, some of the evidence of its former
abundance on the Atlantic coast is here given.
The first unmistakable reference to the Whooping Crane is
made by Capt. Arthur Barlowe in describing a voyage to
America with Capt. Philip Amadas in 1584. They reached
Wokokon (one of the islands enclosing Pamlico Sound) in
July, and there climbed a hill. He says, ‘‘ having discharged
our harquebuz-shot, such a flocke of Cranes (the most part
white) arose under us, with such a cry redoubled by many
1 Syst. Nat., 1758, ed. 10, Vol. I, p. 142.
SPECIES EXING OR EXTIRPATED: 479
echoes, as if an armie of men had showted all together.” !
These birds probably were breeding there, as otherwise they
would not have been there in such numbers at that season.
The great cry described could have been produced only by
Cranes.
Lawson (1709), in his History of Carolina, wrote that
Cranes ‘‘use the savannas, low ground and frogs;”’ and
that they “are above five feet high, when extended; are of a
cream color, and have a crimson spot on the crown of their
heads.” ? This description of the Whooping Crane is unmis-
takable. A hundred years later Wilson found the species in
South Carolina.
Latham (1775) says that the Whooping Crane appears at
the mouth of the Savannah, Aratamaha and other rivers in
spring, going north to breed, like the Common Crane.’
Wilson and Nuttall say that formerly it wintered near
Cape May, N. J. (probably about the last of the eighteenth
century), but its great size and conspicuous plumage made it
a tempting mark, and it was driven away.
Audubon says that in his time it seldom was seen in the
middle States and was unknown to the eastward of these
States, but Nuttall states that it was met with in almost every
part of North America.
Turnbull (1869) asserts that this Crane may be said to
have disappeared from east Pennsylvania and New Jersey, not
even a straggler having been seen for some years.‘
David Pieterszoon De Vries (1633-43), writing of the birds
in New Netherland, speaks of White Cranes and Gray Cranes.
These are given in a list of the birds which are found near the
entrance of the Hudson River and the Achter Col (‘‘ the Back
Bay,” 2.e., Newark Bay), or in the vicinity of what is now
New York City and Newark.°* He tells also of white Herons
and gray ones, which shows that he distinguished them from
the Cranes.
1 Karly English and French Voyages, 1534-1608, edited by H. S. Burrage, 1906, p. 229.
2 Lawson, John: History of Carolina, 1860, p. 239.
3 Latham, J.: General History of Birds, 1821-24, Vol. IX, p. 44.
4 Turnbull, William P.: Birds of East Pennsylvania and New Jersey, 1869, p. 49.
5 Narratives of New Netherland, Am. Hist. Asso., edited by J. Franklin Jameson, 1909,
p: 221.
480 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
We have now traced the Whooping Crane along the
Atlantic Coast from the Carolinas to the borders of New
England.
W. Hubbard, in his General History of New England,
1610, gives Cranes among the birds of Long Island.!
In Roger Wolcott’s account of John Winthrop’s Agency,
1751-54, Cranes are given among the birds of Connecticut.’
William Wood of Massachusetts, writing of New England
in 1629-34, says: “‘ The Crane although hee bee almost as tall
as a man by reason of his long legges, and necke; yet is his
body rounder than other fowles, not much unlike the body of
a Turkie. I have seene many of these fowles, yet did I never
see one that was fat, I suppose it is contrary to their nature to
grow fat; Of these there be many in Summer, but none in
winter, their price is two shilling.” ®
Unless Wood exaggerated he must have referred here to
the Whooping Crane, for that is the only bird in North
America that can be described as “ almost as tall as a man.”
The Whooping Crane stands about five feet high when
stretched to its full height, but being white it appears taller,
while the Sandhill Crane is not so conspicuous on account of its
color and does not appear so large. The Sandhill Crane
actually is smaller, but Wood probably referred to both species,
as they were confounded by early writers. Even Audubon and
Wilson considered both Cranes to be of one species, and re-
garded the Sandhill Crane as the young of the Whooping
‘Crane.
Morton (1632), who lived at Merrymount (Mount Wollas-
ton), near Boston, says: ‘‘ Cranes there are greate store, that
ever more came there at S. Davids Day [March 1], and not
before: that day they never would misse. These sometimes
eate our corne, and doe pay for their presumption well enough;
and serveth there in powther, with turnips, to supply the place
of powthered beefe, and is a goodly bird in a dishe and no dis-
commodity.” *
1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., Vol. VI, 2d ser., p. 672.
2 Ibid., Vol. IV, 1st ser., p. 270.
3 Wood, William: New England’s Prospect, Pub. Prince Soc., 1865, pp. 31, 32.
4 Morton, Thomas: New English Canaan, Pub. Prince Soc., 1883, p. 192.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED 48
Emmons, in his list of Massachusetts birds, published in
1833, marks the Whooping Crane as a rare but regular visit-
ant, breeding in this climate.! In his list this is generally
taken to mean that the bird breeds in Massachusetts, and
possibly it may have bred here in earlier years, but there is no
reason to believe that it bred here at the time Emmons’s list
was made, although it then bred and has since summered in
several States to the westward. I am told by Mr. Ralph Hol-
man that an old hunter living near Worcester, Mass., claimed
to have killed a Whooping Crane in Worcester County in his
early youth, but as the bird was not preserved, and as all wit-
nesses are dead, it is impossible to investigate the statement.
De Kay (1844) includes it in his list of birds of New York,
but says that he never saw it in the State.?
Whether some of the Cranes that were found by the early
explorers along the coasts of Massachusetts and Maine were
of this species it is impossible now to determine definitely, but
Champlain (1615) found this species in the region about the
eastern part of Lake Ontario, for he says, ‘there are also
many cranes, white as swans.” ®
Dr. Thompson, in his Natural History of Vermont (1842),
says that this bird is known in Vermont only by being seen
oceasionally during its migrations, but that it is common
in summer in the fur countries, where it breeds.?
Cranes were found about Hudson Bay by the early ex-
plorers, and this seems to indicate that their line of flight in
the east was from Hudson Bay to New England, and from
there down the Atlantic coast. The White Crane may never
have bred in Massachusetts and may never have existed in
the State in large numbers.
Dr. J. A. Allen, who has made a study of the history of
the birds of Massachusetts, says that this bird was “‘ perhaps ”
formerly an inhabitant of the State. Whether or not it ever
bred here there can be no doubt that it passed through this
region in migration.
1 Hitchcock, Edward: Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany and Zoélogy of Massachu-
setts, 1833, p. 549.
2 De Kay, James E.: Natural History of New York, Part I, Zodlogy, Ornithology, 1844, p. 218.
3 Champlain, Samuel de: Voyages, Pub. Prince Soc., 1882, Vol. III, p. 126.
4 Thompson, Zadock: History of Vermont, 1842, Part 1, p. 103.
482 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Probably there were few Cranes inhabiting Massachusetts
when the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth, except along
the coast, on the islands and on the meadows and marshes
of the river valleys, for most of the State was then covered
with primeval forest; and while Cranes are sometimes found
in open woods, they are shy and wary birds, and prefer the
open country, where they can discern their enemies from afar.
The statements of Wood and Morton probably refer to
both this species and the Sandhill Crane. Both would nat-
urally appear from the south in spring, but it is probable
that the Sandhill Crane was the one that remained in largest
numbers through the summer, for while the Whooping Crane
is known to have bred in this latitude in the western States,
it does not seem probable that it summered in any numbers
in a forested region like Massachusetts.
The fact that, as Morton states, they sometimes ate the
corn proves that they were actually Cranes, not Herons, and
also helps to explain their early disappearance from Massa-
chusetts. They paid with the death penalty for eating the
corn. Also, as these birds occupied the only natural open
lands, —those that were first sought by settlers, — they were
driven out within a few years after settlement began. Even
had they not attacked the corn they must soon have succumbed,
because of their large size, their white color and their general
conspicuousness. In the early days the Indians used to steal
_ upon the Cranes and shoot them with arrows. Now the few
survivors of this species in the west will hardly come know-
ingly within a mile of the white man.
Lawson says that Cranes are sometimes “ bred up tame,”
and are excellent in the garden to destroy frogs and other
vermin.!
This bird is long lived and grows wary as the years go by;
it now frequents prairies, marshes and barren grounds, over
which it stalks, always alert and watchful. It flies low, its
wings sometimes almost brushing the grass tops, but in migra-
tion it rises to such tremendous heights that it may pass over
a large region unnoticed by man. It feeds on frogs, fish, small
1 Lawson, John: History of Carolina, 1860, p. 239,
t AN IN
OI
‘ ‘i
1 Champlain, Samuel de: Voyages, Pub. Prince Soc., 1878, Vol. II, p. 88.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 489
there are, which divers times in great flocks have sallied by
our doores; and then a gunne, being commonly in a redi-
nesse, salutes them with such a courtesie, as makes them take
a turne in the Cooke roome. They daunce by the doore so
well.”+ He asked his Indians what number they found in the
woods, and they answered “‘neent metawna,” more than they
could count, which Morton interprets as “‘a thousand that
davon
William Wood (1629-34, Massachusetts) writes: “the
Turky is a very large Bird, of a blacke colour, yet white
in flesh; much bigger than our English Turky. He hath the
use of his long legs so ready, that he can runne as fast as a
Dogge, and flye as well as a Goose: of these sometimes there
will be forty, threescore, and a hundred of a flocke, sometimes
more and sometimes lesse; their feeding is Acornes, Hawes,
and Berries, some of them get a haunt to frequent our English
corne: In winter when the Snow covers the ground, they
resort to the Sea shore to look for Shrimps, & such smal
Fishes at low tides. Such as love Turkie hunting, must
follow it in winter after a new falne Snow, when hee may
follow them by their tracts; some have killed ten or a dozen
in halfe a day; if they can be found towards an evening and
watched where they peirch, if one come about ten or eleaven
of the clocke he may shoote as often as he will, they will sit,
unlesse they be slenderly wounded. These Turkies remaine
all the yeare long, the price of a good Turkie cocke is foure
shillings; and he is well worth it, for he may be in weight
forty pound.” ?
Several Massachusetts town histories refer to the Turkey.
Many hills and small streams of the Commonwealth have
received their names from the Turkeys which once frequented
them. We can form little idea to-day of the almost incredible
abundance of these noble birds.
Lawson (1709) states that he has seen about five hundred
in a flock.*
1 Morton, Thomas: New English Canaan, Pub. Prince Soc., 1883, p. 192.
2 Wood, William: New England’s Prospect, Pub. Prince Soc., 1865, p. 32.
3 Lawson, John: History of Carolina, 1860, p. 244.
490 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Dr. Lewis (1855) says that in former times they wandered
in vast armies from one end of our country to the other; but
even in his day scarce one was to be found on the whole
northern Atlantic sea-coast.!
In the west it was still numerous, however, for some time
after the transcontinental railroads were built, and Col. W. F.
Cody (Buffalo Bill), who acted as a scout for the United States
army, speaks of a grand Turkey round-up, in which two or
three hundred soldiers surrounded a grove of timber, where
they killed, with guns, clubs and stones, from four hundred
to five hundred of these birds.”
‘““Nessmuk” writes that on a long tramp in the woods of
Michigan, which must have occurred some time during the
middle of the last century, he met with droves of Wild
Turkeys, and on one occasion saw a great army of these birds
extending through the woods as far as he could see in front
and on both sides.
From these comparatively recent experiences in the west
we may get some idea of the number of Turkeys that once
lived in our Massachusetts woods. Turkeys were shot and
trapped at all seasons.
Beverly (1720) writes: ‘“‘they have many pretty devices
besides the gun to take wild turkeys; and among others, a
friend of mine invented a great trap, wherein he at times
caught many turkeys and particularly seventeen at one time.”
Shooting and trapping the birds at all times soon had its
inevitable effect, and the Turkey retired rapidly before the
advance of settlement, and soon it could be found only in the
wildest parts of the country.
Josselyn (1672, Massachusetts) says: “I have also seen
threescore broods of young Turkies on the side of a marsh,
sunning of themselves in a morning betimes, but this was
thirty years since, the English and the Indians having now
destroyed the breed, so that ’tis very rare to meet with a wild
Turkie in the Woods.” ®
1 Lewis, Elisha J.: The American Sportsman, 1855, pp. 120, 121.
2 Huntington, Dwight W.: Our Feathered Game, 1893, p. 47.
3 Sears, George W. (Nessmuk): Woodcraft, 1891, pp. 124, 125.
4 Beverly, Robert: History of Virginia, 1855, p. 256.
5 Josselyn, John: New England’s Rarities, 1865, p. 42.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 49]
In Massachusetts Turkeys were most numerous in the oak
and chestnut woods, for there they found most food. They
were so plentiful in the hills bordering the Connecticut valley
that in 1711 they were sold in Hartford at one shilling four
pence each, and in 1717 they were sold in Northampton,
Mass., at the same price. From 1730 to 1735 the price of
those dressed was in Northampton about one and one-half
penny per pound. After 1766 the price was two and one-
half pence, and in 1788, three pence. A few years after 1800
it was four pence to six pence a pound, and about 1820, when
the birds had greatly decreased, the price per pound was from
ten to twelve and one-half cents.
In the last part of the eighteenth century most of the Wild
Turkeys had been driven west of the Connecticut River, but
there were still a good many in the Berkshire Hills and along
the Connecticut valley on both sides of the river.
Belknap (1792) says “they are now retired to the inland
mountainous country.”! In Connecticut in 1813 the last
recorded bird was seen, and a few were still left in Vermont in
1842.2
De Kay (1844) wrote that the Turkey had disappeared
almost entirely from the Atlantic States, but that a few were’
still to be found about Mt. Holyoke in Massachusetts, and in
Sussex County, N. J., as well as in some of the mountainous
parts of New York.
Brewster states in his Birds of the Cambridge Region, that
the Wild Turkey was not exterminated in Concord, Mass.,
only twenty miles from Boston, until after the beginning of
the nineteenth century.
Emmons (1833) gives the Wild Turkey in his list as a rare
resident in Massachusetts, ““now become scarce and nearly
extinet;”’ but in a footnote Dr. Hitchcock states that the bird
is frequently met with on Mt. Holyoke.
It generally is believed that the last specimen actually
1 Belknap, Jeremy: History of New Hampshire, 1792, Vol. IIT, p. 170.
2 Chamberlain, Montague: Handbook of Ornithology, United States and Canada, 1891, Vol. IT,
p. Zils
3 De Kay, James E.: New York Fauna, 1844, Part IT, p. 200.
4 Hitchcock, Edward: Report of the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany and Zodédlogy of Massachu-
setts, 1835, p. 531.
492 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
known to have been captured in Massachusetts was shot on
Mt. Tom in the winter of 1850—-51.!
Thompson (1842) states that the Turkey had then become
exceedingly rare in all parts of New England, but that it still
bred on the mountains in the southern part of Vermont.”
Wild Turkeys are believed to have existed on Mt. Tom and
Mt. Holyoke longer than anywhere else in Massachusetts.
There was a flock on Mt. Tom in 1842, a few in 1845 and a
single Turkey in 1851. Some remained on Mt. Holyoke nearly
as long.®
In the History of the Sesqui-Centennial Celebration of
South Hadley, the statement is made that a few Turkeys
were left on Mt. Holyoke later than 1851. It is said that a
year or two before the outbreak of the Civil War a party of
hunters from Springfield and Holyoke went to Rock Ferry,
and there divided, a part ascending the north peak of Mt.
Tom and the others crossing the river to Mt. Holyoke, north
and east of the well-known roosting place of the birds. The
latter party beat the woods and drove the few surviving Turkeys
to the southerly end of the mountain, whence they took flight
for Mt. Tom, but before the poor creatures could alight, the
guns of the ambushed hunters had exterminated them.
Wild Turkeys were reported on Mt. Holyoke in 1863, when
one was said to have been killed by a hunting party. Dr.
T. M. Brewer says that some were shot at Montague and other
towns in Franklin County a few years before 1874,* but Mr.
Robert O. Morris believes that these later Turkeys had escaped
from domestication, and that the last of the native wild birds
was that recorded as killed in 1851. The (supposed) last New
England specimen now preserved, taken on Mt. Tom or Mt.
Holyoke, is in the Peabody Museum at New Haven.
Since then the Wild Turkey has disappeared from Canada
and from the Atlantic seaboard, although a few are still to be
found in Virginia and other southern States, and it is still
common in some western localities.
1 Howe, Reginald Heber, and Allen, Glover Morrill: Birds of Massachusetts, 1901, p. 132.
2 Thompson, Zadock: History of Vermont, 1842, p. 101.
3 Judd, Sylvester: History of Hadley, 1863, p. 358.
4 Baird, Brewer and Ridgway: North American Land Birds, 1905, Vol. III, p. 405.
SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 493
The habits of this Turkey have been well described by
Audubon, and no extended notice of them is necessary.
Although it is a bird of the woods, where it roosts high in the
tall timber, in the deep fastnesses of which it hides, it likes
to come out in the open and search in the tall grass of field,
meadow or prairie for insects of which it is fond. When
discovered in such a situation it usually tries to steal away
through the long grass; if followed it runs rapidly, and if
closely pressed rises and flies, often a long distance, generally
making for timber if possible, where it disappears like magic
in the thickets. I well remember when I started my first old
gobbler from the long prairie grass. The rising sun at my
back was just throwing its level beams across the grassy sea
as I emerged from the timber, between the bird and its retreat.
At the sound of my gun the great bird rose resplendent from
the grass, gorgeous with metallic reflections, its broad wings
throwing off the sun rays like polished bronze and gold,—a
sight, as it sailed away, to be long remembered.
At early morning the Turkey leaves its roost and often
hunts about in the “scrub.” The gunner who knows its
habits arrives at its haunts before daybreak, and, taking his
place quietly, remains immovable, awaiting his opportunity,
which often comes before sunrise. Turkey hunters conceal
themselves in trees in the mating season and imitate the note
of the hen Turkey by drawing the breath through a “call”
made from a wing bone of the bird. As the males are polyg-
amous this call is calculated to attract them to their doom.
This is a destructive method which should have been pro-
hibited long since, as well as all killing of the bird in the
breeding season, when the males are thin in flesh and hardly
fit for food. Formerly the Turkey was one of the most unsus-
picious of birds, and would sit on the trees and gaze at the
hunter. Now it is one of the wildest of all the wild things of
the woods.
In the mating season the males strut, gobble and fight in
the manner of the domestic Turkey. The female steals away
by herself to make her nest, and guards her secret carefully
from her many enemies, of which the male is not the least, for
494 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
he will destroy the eggs or the young birds if he finds them.
The young are very weak when first hatched and will hardly
survive a good wetting; Audubon says that when the young
have become chilled and ill the female feeds them the buds of
the spicebush (Benzoin benzoin); but, however she manages,
she often succeeds in rearing the brood. The fox and lynx are
among her most dangerous enemies at this time, but later,
when the young birds have learned to fly and to roost in the
trees, the Great Horned Owl takes its toll from their numbers.
The Wild Turkey adapts itself to circumstances in regard
to food, eating acorns, berries, buds, weed seeds, grass seeds
and other vegetable food. It is aiso fond of grain, and
this no doubt led to its extirpation in Massachusetts. The
gunners watched in the cornfields, or laid long lines of corn in
ditches, where they could rake the whole flock, or baited the
birds into pens, in which whole broods were captured. But
the birds, both young and old, often are useful to the farmer,
for they are very fond of insects, particularly grasshoppers.
Dr. Judd makes an excellent contribution to the literature on
the food habits of the Wild Turkey, including an examination
of sixteen stomachs and crops of Turkeys, made by the Biolog-
ical Survey. These contained 15.57 per cent. of animal mat-
ter and 84.43 per cent. of vegetable matter. The animal
food comprises insects, 15.15 per cent.; miscellaneous inver-
tebrates (spiders, snails and myriapods), .42 per cent. Of
the animal food, 13.92 per cent. consisted of grasshoppers.
Beetles, flies, caterpillars and other insects made up the
residue of 1.23 per cent. The list of animal and vegetable
food as given by Dr. Judd is favorable to the Turkey, as it
contains insect pests, wild berries and no vegetable food of
value to mankind.!
The varied food of this bird gives it the finest flavor of
any fowl that I have ever tasted, and its great size and beauty
contribute to make it, to my mind, the noblest game bird in
the world. It is destined to vanish forever from the earth
unless our people begin at once to protect it.
1 Judd, Sylvester D.: The Grouse and Wild Turkeys of the United States and their Economic
Value, Bulletin 24, Bureau of Biol. Surv., U. S. Dept. of Agr., pp. 49, 50.
PART ITT:
THE CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS, WILD-
FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
PLATE XXIV.— PROPAGATION.
A pair of Bob-whites as kept in a breeding cage by Prof. C. F. Hodge.
(Photograph by the Author.)
—
cp
. i
ED ptm eth
eT, oo
PLATE XXV.— PROTECTION.
This photograph, taken at Palm Beach, Lake Worth, Fla., shows how wild-
fowl respond to perpetual protection. The Ducks shown are Scaups,
commonly known as Bluebills or Creek Broad-bills. (From Bird-Lore.)
PART III.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS.
THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND
SHORE BIRDS.
Game is one of the natural resources of the State. When
the game is exterminated a valuable asset is lost. When
game is conserved it increases the material wealth of the
State, gives value to waste lands, adds to the worth of farm
lands, attracts sportsmen to the State and gives employment
to many people.
An abundance of game birds is necessary to the prosperity
of many great business interests. A very large part of the
business of the gun makers and ammunition manufacturers
depends on keeping up a supply of game birds. Makers of
other sporting goods and clothing, breeders and trainers of
dogs, manufacturers of boats, country hotel keepers, guides,
marketmen, and a host of others, are dependent upon sports-
men or game for a part of their livelihood.
The economic value of game birds on the farm is so con-
siderable that it is well worthy the attention of all farmers
and owners of large traets of land. The Bob-white ranks high
among the most valuable destroyers of insects and weeds (see
page 373). The Heath Hen, the Prairie Chicken, the Upland
Plover and the Killdeer Plover, all of which formerly were
common in many regions from which they since have been
extirpated, or nearly so, rank almost equally high as destroyers
of the insects of farm or field. A plentiful supply of such
birds would free the fields of many insect pests. Birds also
might be made to pay the taxes on the land. It is possible
now for any farmer or association of farmers owning or con-
trolling a large tract of land where game birds are plentiful
498 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
to let the shooting privileges on the property for a sum equal
at least to the amount of the taxes; and the lessees, while pay-
ing for the shooting privileges, will see to it that the supply of
game is kept up.
A succession of game birds rearing their young in the woods
and fields is a perennial delight to the eye, and the good they
do in destroying pests far exceeds any injury that they ordi-
narily cause to the crops.
The Woodcock, Snipe and Upland Plover are commonly
included among game birds, but they are no better food than
some other closely related species among the shore birds. The
Sandpipers, Snipe and Plover all may be reckoned among the
useful species. Most of those known to feed about marshes
and pools probably destroy the young or larvee of mosquitoes.
Mr. W. L. McAtee, in a recent bulletin entitled Our Vanishing
Shorebirds, published by the Bureau of Biological Survey,
lists the Northern Phalarope, Wilson’s Phalarope, the Stilt,
Pectoral, Baird’s, Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers, the
Killdeer and the Semipalmated Plover among the birds now
known to eat mosquitoes. Fifty-three per cent. of the food
of twenty-eight Northern Phalaropes consisted of mosquito
larve. The salt-marsh mosquito (des sollicitans) is eaten
commonly by shore birds. The State of New Jersey, where,
as elsewhere, gunning has decreased the numbers of shore birds,
recently has gone to great expense for the suppression of the
salt-marsh mosquito.
The following passages from Mr. McAtee’s paper will
give some idea of the value of the shore birds as insect eaters: —
“Cattle and other live stock also are seriously molested
by mosquitoes as well as by another set of pests, the horse-
flies. Adults and larvee of these flies have been found in the
stomachs of the dowitcher, the pectoral sandpiper, the Hud-
sonian godwit and the killdeer. Two species of shorebirds,
the killdeer and upland plover, still further befriend cattle
by devouring the North American fever tick.
“Among other fly larvee consumed are those of the crane
flies (leatherjackets) devoured by the following species: north-
ern phalarope (Lobipes lobatus); Wilson phalarope (Steganopus
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 499
tricolor); woodcock (Philohela minor); jacksnipe (Gallinago
delicata); pectoral sandpiper (Pisobia maculata); Baird sand-
piper (Pisobia bairdi); upland plover (Bartramia longicauda) ;
killdeer (Oxyechus vociferus). Crane-fly larve are frequently
seriously destructive locally in grass lands and wheat fields.
Among their numerous bird enemies, shorebirds rank high.
“Another group of insects of which the shorebirds are very
fond is grasshoppers. Severe local infestations of grasshoppers,
frequently involving the destruction of many acres of corn,
cotton, and other crops, are by no means exceptional. Aughey
found 23 species of shorebirds feeding on Rocky Mountain
locusts in Nebraska, some of them consuming large numbers,
as shown below: 9 killdeer stomachs contained an average of
28 locusts each; 11 semipalmated plover stomachs contained
an average of 38 locusts each; 16 mountain plover stomachs
contained an average of 45 locusts each; 11 jacksnipe stom-
achs contained an average of 37 locusts each; 22 upland
plover stomachs contained an average of 36 locusts each;
10 long-billed curlew stomachs contained an average of 48
locusts each.”
Nearly all shore birds are fond of grasshoppers and many
species feed also on weevils, wireworms, leaf beetles and other
pests of the fields. Along the shores large numbers of the
marine worms which prey upon oysters are eaten by shore
birds. Mr. McAtee says that commonly from one hundred to
two hundred of these worms are eaten at a meal. We have
been devoting too much of our time to shooting shore birds
and not enough to protecting them.
The economic value of wild-fowl is as great as that of game
birds. The term wild-fowl may include all wild birds, but
as commonly used it denotes merely water-fowl which are
hunted for food or sport. Wild-fowl were very important as
a source of food supply during the settlement of this country,
and later, when markets for game were opened, they became
a valuable asset to the people, and yielded vast sums annually
to settlers, hunters and marketmen. Even to-day, in parts of
the west and south where the sale of game is still legal, the
sums annually received by hunters from the marketing of
500 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
wild-fowl are very large. Mr. Frank M. Miller, chairman of
the Fish and Game Commission of Louisiana, estimates that
two and one-half million wild-fowl were killed in that State
in the season of 1908-09. His estimate is based on the reports
of gunners and game wardens, with a very liberal allowance
for exaggeration. Had the wild-fowl of this country been con-
served, they might have yielded a perpetual annual product
worth many millions of dollars.
In the older parts of the country, where wild-fowl are now
much diminished in numbers as compared with their former
abundance, much of their economic value to the inhabitants
consists in their attraction for sportsmen. Massachusetts
sportsmen frequently have asserted that in the pursuit of
Ducks and Geese they spend from five dollars to twenty-five
dollars for every bird they kill, and were wild-fowl numerous
throughout New England, large sums would be distributed
annually by sportsmen to hotels, boatmen, farmers and guides,
and the business of country merchants would be increased.
Many species of wild-fowl, if properly conserved, would do
good service to agricultural communities by destroying insects
and weed seeds.
Loons are not beneficial in this respect. They are believed
to feed mainly on fish and other aquatic animals, and there-
fore some people have regarded them as injurious to food fish.
No thorough study of their food has been made; but it seems
probable that they are beneficial rather than injurious to
game fish. They feed on the natural enemies of the fish as
well as on the fish themselves and thereby keep a healthful
balance among the forms of aquatic life, and help to maintain
rather than to decrease the numbers of food fish useful to man-
kind. The Mergansers or Sheldrakes, as they are commonly
called, evidently perform a similar office. The Scoters, or so-
called “Coots,” are regarded by some short-sighted persons
as detrimental to the shell-fisheries, because these birds are
known to eat edible shell-fish; but they devour also some of
the most destructive enemies of these shell-fish. The chief
utility of the Scoters and Old-squaws lies in their ability to
dive in deep water and feed on various forms of marine life,
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 501
thus assisting other forces to maintain the biologic balance
in the waters of bays, estuaries and lakes.
Dr. George W. Field, chairman of the Massachusetts
Commission on Fisheries and Game, informs me that mussels,
which are the principal food of Scoters, or “Coots,” and
Eiders, are among the chief enemies of the common clam.
They occupy clam flats to the exclusion of the clams, and
are difficult to eradicate. The Scoters feed on starfish also,
and Dr. Field says that they destroy the oyster drill (U7ro-
salpinx cinerea). The starfish and the drill are the most de-
structive enemies of the oyster and the scallop, and are dreaded
by the oyster growers. Dr. Field declares that these animals
are certainly a hundred times as destructive to the oyster and
scallop industries as are all species of water-fowl combined.
While the Scoters feed on sea clams (Mactra solidissima),
quahaugs (Venus mercenaria) and scallops (Pecten irradians),
they take only the young or very small shell-fish,' and Dr.
Field states his belief that, other things being equal, these
birds select mainly those places where such shell-fish are most
abundant. Young shell-fish in their beds are so crowded that
were they not thinned out many would die from overcrowding
or lack of food. Dr. Field states that he has found young
clams set as thickly as two thousand to the square foot. In
such cases the removal of all but a dozen or twenty to the square
foot will be succeeded usually by a rapid increase in growth.
Thus the thinning done by the birds saves shell-fish from the
evils of overcrowding, and benefits the shell-fish industry
by inducing a quicker and better growth of the marketable
product. It seems probable that these birds are essential to
the success of the shell-fisheries, and that any serious reduction
in their numbers would be detrimental to the industry.
River Ducks require a large quantity of animal food in
spring, and devour such destructive insects as army worms,
cutworms, marsh caterpillars, grasshoppers and _ locusts.
Aughey in his report on Locust-feeding Birds, made to the
United States Entomological Commission in 1877, gives the
1 A small bivalve commonly eaten by these birds is very similar to the quahaug and usually is
mistaken for it. This is Gemma gemma, a favorite food of the Black Duck, which never grows
toa marketable size.
502 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
following notes on the stomach contents of wild-fowl: Ten
Mallard stomachs contained an average of twenty-two locusts
and twenty other insects each; seven Pintail stomachs con-
tained an average of eleven locusts and thirty-four other in-
sects each; nine Green-winged Teal stomachs contained an
average of four locusts and forty-eight other insects each;
nine Wood Duck stomachs contained an average of fifteen
locusts and twenty-three other insects each; four Buffle-
head stomachs contained an average of ten locusts and forty-
four other insects each. All these Ducks had eaten also some
seeds and mollusks, but had not disturbed the farmers’ crops.
The chief value of the wild-fowl to the people, however,
is not to be found in the place that they occupy on our tables,
nor in the sport that they afford. Even their utility to the
farmer is secondary to their esthetic value, which serves as an
added attraction to any country. Their beauty and grace,
their stirring calls and lively ways, their swift and winnowing
flight make the land that they inhabit a more interesting place
to live in. Game birds of all kinds have a very high educational
value. As objects of observation and study with field glass or
telescope they are of far greater service to the majority of
outdoor people, and to those who seek needed recreation in
the country, than they are to the gunner, the marketman or
the sportsman. Those who love nature for her own sake, who
take delight in the living bird, whose ears are attuned to
resonant cry and whistling wing, who have that quality of
mind which sees more value and more profit in the bird alive
in its native element than in the bloody and bedraggled carcass
hanging in the butcher’s stall, must see to it that these birds
are conserved.
Americans are turning to the country life. It is the life
to which we as a people must resort to maintain and increase
the vigor and virility of the nation. Our lakes and rivers have
now lost much of their former attractiveness. It will never
be fully regained until, as of old, they are again frequented by
flocks of beautiful and lively water-fowl. The great army
of outdoor people that is constantly recruiting — an army
destined soon to far out-number all others interested in
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 508
birds — will hold our wild-fowl at a greater value in the coming
age, and we may look forward confidently to the day when
again, as of yore, Americans will see our lakes and rivers re-
populated by their happy feathered inhabitants. Some, per-
haps, will be missing, — exterminated in our day, — but the
intelligent, educated people of our race will come in time to
see the folly of exterminating these useful birds for the profit
of the few. They will appreciate the many advantages of con-
serving them for the benefit of all mankind.
THE DECREASE OF GAME BIRDS IN MASSACHUSETTS.
The need of conserving the present supply of game birds,
wild-fowl and shore birds on the Atlantic seaboard, is indicated
by the following table, in which the results of my inquiries
regarding the decrease of such birds in Massachusetts are set
down, so far as they can be expressed in figures. The manner
in which the reports were obtained from which these figures
were taken is related on pages 33 and 34.
It should be noted that this table refers only to Massachu-
setts, and that, as stated on page 34, it represents an average
period of twenty-seven years and three months prior to the
vear 1909. The number of years of experience credited to
these observers may be averaged in another way, closely
approximating the following tabulation: —
9 observers have had about 5 years’ experience.
27 observers have had about 10 years’ experience.
35 observers have had about 15 years’ experience.
48 observers have had about 20 years’ experience.
40 observers have had about 25 years’ experience.
41 observers have had about 30 years’ experience.
22 observers have had about 35 years’ experience.
23 observers have had about 40 years’ experience.
19 observers have had about 45 years’ experience.
19 observers have had about 50 years’ experience.
3 observers have had about 55 years’ experience.
4 observers have had about 60 years’ experience.
Two hundred and fifty-four of these observers have had
from fifteen to sixty years’ experience in the field. Most of
504 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
them are gunners, of whom a fair proportion might also be
ranked as ornithologists, and the list includes some of the
principal ornithologists of Massachusetts.
Table indicating the Decrease of Certain Game Birds, Wild-fowl and Shore
Birds in Massachusetts.
[Average time of observation, 27 years, 3 months.]
Be eae | oe
els | é |=
De ae é eg
BE/209| §¢ | 38
Ba |ese| 52 as
Pe aol vee
Merganser, . 10 6 5616 39
Red-breasted Merganser, 15 7 4414 34
Hooded Merganser, 10 5 5524 31
Mallard, 17 13 3336 63
Black Duck, 40 22 41194,| 126
Breeding Black Duck, 27 13 33 83
Baldpate, 9 7 3614 34
Green-winged Teal, 6 1 30 71
Blue-winged Teal, 8 3 3314 100
Pintail, 6 3 1314 30
Wood Duck, 13 3 3716 104
Redhead, 15 6 5535 34
Scaup, 16 8 3815 43
Lesser Seaup, 5 1 100 27
Golden-eye, 10 8 50 62
Buffle-head, 7 3 3624 53
Old-squaw, 11 9 2414 47
American Eider, 2 1 10 37
Scoter, 7 2 1714 43
White-winged Scoter, 12 5 5356 52
Surf Scoter, 11 4 4716 46
Ruddy Duck, 9 6 1814 55
Canada Goose, 19 9 4536 81
Brant, 15 6 37 41
Virginia Rail, 4 2 38 30
Sora Rail, . 5 3 50 40
Coot, . 10 6 25 67
Per Cent. of De-
Number reporting
crease.
to
oo
3 BO| # =e
a Sa ey aaa
Poe A) ae
aes ERE BAS 58
= Z Z Z
5324 24 16 194
4756 30 25 188
4716 20 21 195
6336 18 37 100
41944 33 - 175
571% 10 - -
6554 9 15 | 217
65194, u 27 172
6514 9 21 148
7456 i 21 223
75 7 - 118
5526 10 35 202
6258 22 11 207
6316 14 6 241
3024 39 9 163
672% 11 23 197
5089 40 4 292
635% 24 5 223
61 36 9 204
5356 47 3 184
49 42 a 191
5956 11 10 214
58243 35 8 128
58 15 11 163
435%, 11 i |] Oe
4734 9 12 217
7136 28 23 165
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 505
Table indicating the Decrease of Certain Game Birds, Wild-fowl and Shore
Birds in Massachusetts — Concluded.
|
el les lies | ae
Sue erica ley year Weealeel G
Se | 55] Se sA}sa6| 2h Sa) se] sea
Z Zz = Z Z a Z Z a
Woodcock (breeding), : 35 19 2913 150 98 5924 28 - 50
Woodcock (flight), —. 4 27 14 3945 136 92 5214 20) - 63
Wilson’s Snipe, . : 5 9 3 1814 LOSES 67 631041, 18 | 36 120
Dowitcher, 5 6 3 7s = = 61 37 69 | 5 11 210
Knot, 5 | 2 1714 40 | 20 675% | 4 8 223
Purple Sandpiper, 4 1 25 21 12 671 2 7 244
Pectoral Sandpiper, 7 4 6216 44 25 6234 ay | 5 205
White-rumped Sandpiper, . 8 6 29 62 24 5926 15 | 2 | 106
Least Sandpiper, Near 7 47 Te || 59841 | 33 | 6 | 175
Red-backed Sandpiper, .. 4 3 62 49 23 5314 6 | 7 218
Sanderling, 4 3) 23tees| 55, 1125 | lepa% |) 12) | 8. We 207
Marbled Godwit, . .| - | - - SOM ited | mrsare. | eel | 9 | 242
Hudsonian Godwit, . ' La 1 80 | 25 13 | 0) | Sy sale 242
Greater Yellow-legs, . =| 9 3 6046 91 61 50744 12 8 157
Yellow Legs, . . .|/ 9 | 3 | 31% | 87 | 67 | 60%) 14 | 20 | 146
Solitary Sandpiper, . 5 5 | 4°| 26 38 21 485g | 17 | 9 218
Wilt ame eee See Oe lt oe | s Sy S|), 1683 6 | 17 | 222
Upland Plover,. . 6 ae | oar 76s |) 2545) “794g |) = a8 | 31 | 174
Spotted Sandpiper, . , 15 ll 40 | 59 | 38 5525 46 | 4 160
Long-billed Curlew, . —. - - - 38 15 7744 ei a ||| Bile
Hudsonian Curlew, . 2 7 3 2814 44 22 5114 8 | 7 223
Eskimo Curlew, 5 ap: = - - 39 15 78 son ame Sanligas2
Black-bellied Plover, s 12 7 2416 68 43 4556 15 | 5 185
Golden Plover, . : =| 4 1 100 54 38 7336 jp alt 200
Taiece een ahd Aerie th Oe — | | 23 | 80% 6 | 12 | 218
Semipalmated Plover, 6 4 95 71 46 | 56 21 6 288
Piping Plover, . : 5 4 2 35 40 | 20 591, | 8 10 228
Turnstone, 7 5 331g 47 26 7536 12 | ll 210
Bob-white, A i 3 26 10 5624 232 166 78 4 | = 13
Ruffed Grouse, . , P 19 16 2814 235 106 5914 15 | - 6
Mourning Dove, Z é 33 18 381g 59 38 6716 - | 33 174
506 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
The average percentages of increase and decrease contained
in this table should not be given too much weight, since in
the nature of the case no estimate of this kind is authoritative
except in the few cases where records of the number of birds
seen have been kept annually for many years. The more
conservative observers hesitate to attempt such estimates
and some refuse to give any figures. Such as are given are
averaged above for the reason that such an average will prob-
ably approximate the facts; but as very few observers have
stated the exact time during which the increase or decrease of
each species has been observed, it is unsafe to attempt to analyze
the figures regarding each species or to make deductions
from them. It should be noted that a decrease of fifty per
cent. offsets a subsequent increase of one hundred per cent.
In other words, if a species has been reduced one-half, or fifty
per cent., in numbers, it must then double its numbers, or
increase them one hundred per cent., to reach its original
abundance. Therefore, in cases where birds have been diminish-
ing for years it will require a very large percentage of increase
to restore them to their former numbers. For this reason the
percentages of increase in this table are not very significant.
Long hours of study of the original reports on which the
above table is based lead me to believe that as it stands it
leaves too optimistic an impression of the present status of
game birds, shore birds and wild-fowl in Massachusetts. The
reasons for this belief follow: —
1. Many of the names of the rarer birds were not included
in the circular requesting information, hence they do not
appear in the table, and we get no record there of their decrease.
2. There are reports of increase in the numbers of all
species included in the circular except the Passenger Pigeon,
Eskimo Curlew, Long-billed Curlew, Marbled Godwit and
Killdeer Plover, all of which have been nearly and two quite
extirpated from Massachusetts. Many of the other species
are well known to be decreasing generally, and reports of
increase must be owing to local and exceptional conditions.
3. The number of those who regard certain species as in-
creasing or holding their own is larger than the facts will
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 507
warrant. (If all those who filled out the blanks had stated
the time during which they had observed that each bird had
increased or held its own it would have been possible to present
this phase of the subject more satisfactorily.)
4. There was no space provided in the information blanks
in which to record certain species as extirpated or extinct in
the region reported on. Had such a space been provided, there
is reason to believe it would have shown results.
5. The reports of decrease usually refer to long periods,
while those of increase mostly refer to brief, recent periods, and,
in some cases, they may record mere ordinary local fluctuations
in numbers. There is nothing in the table to show this.
6. When a species is not reported there is no way in which
to determine whether it is absent or merely overlooked. In
nearly all cases the number not reporting each species is large.
In general, this indicates that the species is not found, or is
rarely found over a large part of the State, but there is no in-
formation as to whether it was found there formerly. Un-
doubtedly many of these species were found formerly where
now they are absent, but the table does not show this.
The observers not reporting on the American Merganser,
the Black Duck, the Blue-winged Teal and the Wood Duck
number one hundred and ninety-four, one hundred and
seventy-five, one hundred and forty-eight and one hundred and
eighteen respectively. As these birds formerly were common
throughout most of the Commonwealth, these negative re-
ports are significant. On the other hand, the fact that two
hundred and twenty-three observers do not report the Eider
is not so significant, as the Eider always was rare inland.
The Ruffed Grouse is reported from nearly all parts of
the State and by all but six correspondents, while all but
thirteen report on the Bob-white. This is encouraging, as it
shows that the reduced breeding stock is widely distributed,
and that these popular game birds normally occupy most of
the State.
An examination of the reports of those who find species
increasing in numbers shows that twenty-seven come from
men who have had less than ten years’ experience. This is
508 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
too short a time to furnish authoritative data regarding the
increase or decrease of a species, as fluctuations in numbers or
local changes caused by an increase or depletion of the food
supply may form the basis of such reports. “‘Hope springs
eternal in the human breast,’ and a temporary increase or
congestion of birds in a certain locality often is regarded as a
significant increase of the species.
Many ornithologists who in their published papers have
written of the numbers of certain species have been thus de-
ceived, and should have written in the past tense when de-
scribing the abundance of certain birds. They have failed to
realize how much conditions have changed. There are many
people who believe that the Passenger Pigeon still exists
somewhere in large numbers, and will come back. There
are others who believe that they recently have seen this and
other extinct species. It is difficult for the younger generation
of gunners to realize that birds are decreasing or to admit it
until the decrease has become very marked.
The Reproductive Powers of Nature.
The game preserver may be encouraged in his work by
the fact that, however rapid the depletion of game, its restora-
tion under natural conditions is sure and swift. Wherever a
species is reduced much in numbers the conditions become
more favorable for its increase. When birds become few the
supply of food per bird is increased greatly, which stimulates
the reproductive powers. The number of covers and suitable
nesting places is larger in proportion, owing to the decreased
numbers of the birds, and the competition for food and other
necessities is decreased. Thus, unless a species is subject to
undue persecution by mankind, a speedy increase commonly
follows any sudden decrease, except, perhaps, in cases where
the depletion has gone too far, when extermination results.
With the game preserver it is never too late to restock. “While
there is life there is hope.”
The possible increase of a game bird under artificial propa-
gation may be illustrated in the following manner: if we
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CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 509
assume that each pair of Bob-whites can produce ten young
in a year, that each pair breeds only once in its lifetime, that
the length of life of the species is ten years, and that the progeny
of a single pair were all preserved to live until the tenth year
we should have at the end of ten years twenty-four million four
hundred fourteen thousand and sixty birds.
The increase of ten birds from each pair is a very moderate
one, as a female Quail in confinement has been known to lay
more than one hundred eggs in one season, nearly all of which
were fertile, and the probability is that a pair of Quail will
breed for several years, whereas our computation is based
upon only one brood during the lifetime of each pair. The
above increase in numbers merely gives possibilities. When-
ever the mind of man solves the problem of propagation,
some slight approach to such multiplication may be realized.
Man can assist the wonderful reproductive and recupera-
tive powers of nature, and the time will come — and that
soon — when he will have solved the problem of reproducing
certain species of game in unlimited quantities. Patient, single-
minded research, followed by applied science, will stock the
world again with such species of game birds and mammals
as will adapt themselves readily to the methods of the
propagator.
There is no limit to the productive capacity of nature
except the bounds set by nature herself, and man will learn
eventually to so control conditions that even those bounds will
be forced back. The time is coming when millions of game
birds will be propagated in this country. But it is probable
that comparatively few species will prove available for this
purpose, and that all the other species will require stringent
protection. Most of the species of the order Limicol@, which
includes the Snipe, Woodcock, Sandpipers and Plovers, rear
but few young, and many species may soon require protection
at all times to save them from extinction; while, on the other
hand, we may be able to multiply indefinitely certain Grouse,
Bob-whites, Ducks and Geese. First, as a basis for game pro-
tection, we must understand thoroughly the causes of game
destruction.
510 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
THE CAUSES OF THE DECREASE OF GAME BIRDS.
What is regarded by my correspondents (mostly gunners)
as the relative importance of the various agencies for the de-
struction of Ruffed Grouse may be inferred from the following
tabulation, which shows the number who regard each of the
designated causes to be important. No suggestion was made
to any one of these observers and no leading questions were
asked regarding the causes of the decrease of game birds. The
information is voluntary, and the personal experience of the
number of observers assigning a cause of decrease may be
considered an index to the importance of that cause, pro-
vided that the observers are well qualified to judge, and that
they have not been unduly influenced by the writings or the
opinions of others. Those causes which relate to shooting are
starred.
AGENCIES OF DESTRUCTION AND NUMBER REPORTING THEM.
*Increase of gunners and overshooting, : : : , pee Bi)
Foxes, : : : , ‘ : : ; 5 ETS
Cutting faabee or breke ‘ ; : : : . 66
Inclement weather and bad reedingc seasons, . , : Fas
*Hunting with dogs, : Pee ae : : : : si)
Hawks, 9. san = Piette ei eg : ~ 29
Cats, : : : 5 : ; : ; : . ; . 28
Snaring, . : : . : : : . : ‘ : 2 28.
Forest fires, . ; : : ; : , ; : : » $26
Disease, . : , ; : : : ; : : : res
Skunks, . : ; : : : : : ; gt © 52S
*Non-enforcement of awe Se: ee : : : : : ; i
Wood ticks, . : : : ‘ : : i ; : sls
*Pump and magazine guns, . : : : , : 5 ea
*Long open seasons, : : : ; : : 4 ; a ee
Owls, ; : 9
Dogs running at large, . 5
*Automobiles and electric cars, 3
Pheasants, : 2
*Tllegal sale of birds, 2
Brush fires and campers, 2
Gypsy moths (causing cutting of woodland): 2
Draining of swamps, 2
Crows, 2
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 511
Rats,
Raccoons, ;
Lack of restocking,
Weasels,
Snakes,
Hedgehogs,
Telegraph wires,
ee ee
Intestinal worms,
The chief causes of the decrease of game are market hunt-
ing, spring shooting, the sale and export of game, overshooting
generally and the destruction of the breeding places of birds
by settlement, agriculture and lumbering.
All these destructive influences have been augmented by
the great improvements in firearms, and their cheapness. The
improvement and extension of means of transportation have
widened considerably the activities of the gunner. Steamboat
lines, railroads, electric cars and automobiles are tremendous
factors in the destruction of game. The extension of the
rail service and of the telephone and telegraph, combined with
sportsmen’s journals as a medium of advertising, have opened
up the whole country, so that the gunner can get information
from all parts of it and follow the game wherever it appears.
Most settlers, many lumbermen and some farmers live more
or less upon game.
Lumbering has had considerable effect in decreasing the
Ruffed Grouse, by removing the cover and winter shelter
afforded by the pines. The portable steam sawmill has cut
away much of this cover in Massachusetts, to the great detri-
ment of the birds. Some of the destructive influences are
important enough to be considered in detail.
Market Hunting.
There is nothing more destructive to wild game of any kind
than hunting, netting, trapping or snaring for the market.
The skin, plume, feather, egg and meat markets are very
largely responsible for the depletion and extirpation of birds.
The high price paid for any game bird to-day is equivalent to
a bounty on its head. We might as well offer bounties for the
rc
512 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
destruction of our wild game as to allow it to be sold in the
market. The wild birds which now stand in greatest danger of
extinction are mainly those whose flesh or feathers bring the
highest prices in the markets of the world. All that is necessary
to insure the extermination of a species is to put a liberal price
upon its head. It will then be pursued to the “uttermost
parts of the earth.” Laws will be broken, the officers of the
law will be evaded or intimidated, or, if efficient, will be over-
powered or murdered, and the demands of the market will be
supplied so long as the birds last. The experience of centuries
may be cited in proof of this statement. Market hunters are
not necessarily villains or lawbreakers. In many cases they
are “good fellows,” upright, law-abiding citizens, respectable
and respected; but in putting a price upon the heads of wild
game we offer a premium to the idle, the vicious, the irrespon-
sible and the criminal, who roam the woods, fields and shores
for the reward they may gain by killing and selling game.
The market hunter may not kill any more game in a day than
some expert sportsman, but where the sportsman shoots
occasionally the market hunter shoots continually. It is his
business to kill as many as possible while the birds last, and
to spare none. He feels that there is nothing reprehensible
in this, for if he does not kill them “‘some other fellow will.”
Market hunting stimulates the use of devices for capturing
game by wholesale. The snare, the net, the battery, the
*‘swivel cannon,” repeating and automatic guns, traps, live
decoys and all devices for killing or capturing large numbers of
birds are used to supply the market, and so long as wild birds
can be sold legally, illegal and destructive methods will be
used in procuring them.
It is difficult to enforce laws forbidding the use of such
devices until the sale of wild game is prohibited and the in-
centive for market hunting thereby removed. Many a law-
breaker will kill birds from dawn to dark, in season and out of
season, year in and year out, anywhere and in any way, so
long as there is a market to which he can ship his game.
Mr. Edward L. Parker tells me that market hunters on
the coast of Texas formerly were able to average more than
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 513
two hundred Ducks each daily, during the season. Some of
them quit when the Ducks had decreased to such an extent
that they could not get this number daily, as then they could
earn more money at farming. He says that a wealthy man,
who secured control of a lake frequented by wild-fowl, formerly
shipped Ducks enough to return him from ten thousand to
twelve thousand dollars a year. Mr. C. E. Brewster talked
with a half-breed market hunter at High Island, Texas, in
1910, who, with his partner, had just come in to the railroad
station with a day’s bag of birds. They had killed two hun-
dred and five Ducks that day. One of them said that for six-
teen years he had hunted every week day during the season
when the Ducks were there. He received $872.30 for the game
that he killed in the winter of 1909-10. These Ducks were
mainly shipped to northern markets. He “loafed” during
the remainder of the year. The sale of these birds was illegal,
as the law forbade shipment out of the State, and it was illegal
for any man to kill more than a limited number of birds in
a day; but so long as markets for wild game are open, men
will be found to supply them. This hunter said frankly that
the diminution of the game was very marked, and that he be-
lieved that at the present rate of decrease the Ducks would be
practically extinct within the next decade. Nevertheless, he
was doing all that he could to exterminate them, because, by
breaking the law, he could get more money with less exertion
than in any other way. To-day, by means of automatic guns,
live decoys and “batteries” or blinds, market hunters, under
favorable conditions, sometimes make enormous kills. Mr.
T. Gilbert Pearson, secretary of the National Association of
Audubon Societies, informs me that in one week in November,
1909, two men killed fourteen hundred Blue-bills on Currituck
Sound, and another shot four hundred from his battery in
one day.
Mr. Henry T. Phillips of Detroit, Mich., a former market
hunter, asserts that in his camp a party consisting of three
men shot seventy-two pounds of powder in thirty days, and
that two of them killed twelve barrels of Ducks in four days.
He himself in one week shot one hundred and two, one hundred
514 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
and nineteen, one hundred and forty-two and one hundred
and fifty-five Redheads on different days on the Detroit River.
He hunted for fifteen years prior to 1894. It needs little imagi-
nation to see how destructive such a market hunter can become.!
Dr. D. G. Elliot states that a game dealer in New York
received twenty tons of Prairie Chickens in one consignment
in 1864, and that some of the larger dealers sold from one
hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred thousand birds in
six months. Prof. Samuel Aughey, who gathered statistics
regarding the destruction of Bob-whites and Pinnated Grouse,
or Prairie Chickens, in Kansas from 1865 to 1877, asserts
that about four hundred and fifty thousand of these birds
were killed each year in thirty counties of Nebraska alone.
Game Commissioner John H. Wallace, Jr., of Alabama states
that before the present game laws of that State were passed
no less than nine million Bob-whites were killed there in one
season. All kinds of stratagems are used to evade the law
and get birds to market. Tons of rabbits or hares have been
shipped to market with Bob-whites stuffed into the cavity
in each hare, from which the viscera had been removed.
During a time when Prairie Chickens and Bob-whites could
be sold legally in Massachusetts but could not be shipped law-
fully from the west, the law was evaded by sending birds east
in coffins. These birds finally reached our markets in Boston
and New York City. In Forest and Stream of March 11, 1912,
it is stated that on February 18 nine thousand Bob-whites in
one shipment were seized by a sheriff and a game warden in
Oklahoma. These birds were destined for the northern mar-
kets. Quantities of Ruffed Grouse have been marked as fish or
chickens and illegally shipped to Boston fish or poultry dealers.
The tons of Prairie Chickens, Quail, Pigeons, Eskimo
Curlews, Golden Plover and Upland Plover that once came
into Boston and New York markets in barrels are of the past,
and the marketmen are reaching out everywhere to find game.
They are now getting wild-fowl, rabbits, guinea hens, or any-
thing that can be legally sold. Mr. James Henry Rice, Jr., sec-
retary of the Audubon Society of South Carolina, writes me that
1 Mershon, W. B.: The Passenger Pigeon, 1907, p. 110.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 515
he has seen five thousand Mallards and Black Ducks brought
into Georgetown, 5. C., for shipment to the north in one day.
He states that one firm in Georgetown has marketed two
hundred and forty thousand Rails and that seven hundred
and twenty thousand Bobolinks have been shipped in one
season. Probably millions of Robins have been sold in southern
markets.
Notwithstanding the many restrictions on the marketing
of native wild game, enormous quantities of game birds have
been sold, and the laws protecting them have been violated by
unscrupulous dealers. In 1903, forty-two thousand seven
hundred and fifty-nine birds were found illegally in the posses-
sion of a cold-storage house in New York City, thirty-four
thousand four hundred and thirteen of which were game birds,
eighteen thousand and fifty-eight were Snow Buntings and
two hundred and eighty-eight were Bobolinks.
The markets of the large cities draw their supplies from
many parts of the country and from foreign lands. Game birds
from European countries, from Siberia, Manchuria and the
West Indies are now sold in our markets. Many species of
Pheasant are now extinct or approaching extinction in their
native lands. Game first becomes scarce near the large mar-
ket centers and then at greater and greater distances from
them, as the demand increases and extends.
The modern demand for game is unlimited. Formerly the
market was sometimes glutted and the demand ceased. Now
facilities for cold storage make it possible for the marketmen
to preserve great quantities of game indefinitely. n 3 1» 5 » iad q og) ay ag. + +> 12s 2 p> at
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CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. S75)
that many more wild-fowl are killed in winter in the southern
States than are killed here. Their principal argument is that
we should permit spring shooting here because it still is allowed
in the south. Even from a selfish standpoint this is the weakest
possible argument for spring shooting. By killing wild-fowl
in the fall we certainly can prevent them from falling into the
hands of the southerners; but those which come back to us
in spring have escaped both northern and southern gunners,
if, indeed, they have been south at all. Why should we kill
them then, when they are going to their breeding grounds,
and when every mated pair killed cuts off the return to us in
the coming autumn of perhaps six to a dozen young? Self-
interest alone should prohibit spring shooting.
If the southern people were permitted by law to rob and
kill those of our citizens who visit them in winter should we
consider that a sufficient reason why we should plunder and
murder those, who, having escaped the dangers of the south,
return in safety to their homes in the north? Are we so short-
sighted that we cannot see that spring protection works to
our own advantage? When all is considered we find that the
shooting in the south does not affect our supply of birds here
nearly so much as is commonly supposed. The majority of
the wild-fowl which are killed in the south are birds which never
saw New England. They are bred in the northwest, and
reach the south in winter by journeying south or southeast
across the country, and never come here at all. Also, many of
the species which are shot along our coasts are rarely hunted
in the south. Wood Duck and Teal go far south, but many
Black Ducks and some of the bay and sea Ducks rarely go
very far to the southward of Massachusetts. The southern
gunner does not consider the Scoters or “Coots”? and the
Mergansers or Sheldrakes worth the powder and shot necessary
to kill them, and he rarely shoots them. These birds are shot
mainly on the coast from Labrador to New Jersey, and they
must be protected here if at all. Many Black Ducks, some
Brant and many sea Ducks remain in winter off the coast of
southern New England and New York, particularly in mild sea-
sons, and if protection is continued here more will remain.
526 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Some gunners, especially those on Cape Cod and Martha’s
Vineyard, claim that they have no chance to shoot certain
species except in the spring. While this is not strictly accurate,
still it has some foundation in fact, particularly on the island
of Martha’s Vineyard, where Geese appear more in spring,
and are less difficult to take than in fall. Since spring shooting
has been stopped, however, more Geese have appeared there
in fall. This island, also, is a natural breeding ground for
wild-fowl, and with spring shooting stopped there it should
be possible to raise Geese enough on the island to attract
others, and thus to afford the inhabitants good shooting in the
fall. Every species of wild-fowl which comes up our coast
in spring goes down it in the fall (there are a few, however,
which are rarer in spring than in fall). The opportunity is
open to all the people along our coasts to shoot these birds in the
fall or in December. Those who are not able to avail them-
selves of this opportunity because of the cares of business,
or peculiar local conditions, are in no worse case with spring
shooting prohibited than are the great majority of gunners of
the interior of the State who now get practically no wild-fowl
shooting, and who never will have any unless spring shooting
ean be prohibited forever, that the birds may have a chance
to come back to rest, feed and breed along the rivers, on the
lakes and in the swamps of the State. All spring shooting
should be prohibited, because no shooting should be allowed
in the breeding season. Breeding birds must not be disturbed.
When ‘the law is off’ on one or more species many lawbreakers
take advantage of this fact, and if they do not find what they
seek they shoot something else. I have known reputable men
who, failing to get Snipe in spring, shot Swallows on the
meadows for practice. Irresponsible, lawbreaking gunners,
when out shooting in spring or fall, will shoot at sight any
large bird that they see, and many small ones, whether pro-
tected by law or not. Spring shooting should be stopped,
that all useful birds may be protected in the nesting season.
Then a shot fired in spring will be a matter of mquiry for
every game warden, and nesting birds will have some
peace.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. Sy
There are gunners along the New England coast who de-
plore spring shooting, but who believe that they should be
allowed to shoot during the months of January and February,
which, they argue rightly, are not spring months; but wide
experience has shown that our wild-fowl cannot be adequately
conserved and increased in numbers unless they are protected
from all shooting except during the fall migration. Prof. W. W.
Cooke of the Biological Survey, who will be conceded by all
who are conversant with the facts to be the foremost specialist
on bird migration in the United States, says that the fall
migration of wild-fowl ceases about December 1. If the
autumn has been mild, and is followed by extreme cold, there
may be later movements that are caused by the freezing over
of the fresh waters, which drives most Black Ducks, Pond
Sheldrakes, Whistlers, Broad-bills and other species farther
south or to the salt water. Usually such frosts occur in De-
cember, and if the shooting season is prolonged until January
1, the shore gunner has an opportunity to hunt all these birds.
The season should be closed then in order to protect during
the inclement season all the Ducks which remain in our waters.
It should be closed on all wild-fowl at that time, for the reason
that if any exception is made all species of wild-fowl will be
shot.
The killing of wild-fowl during January and February
should be prohibited absolutely on any coast where the fresh
waters become ice-bound during these months. Ordinarily in
New England most of the fresh ponds freeze in December,
and the pond and river Ducks are then driven to the salt
water. Because of the inferior nature of the food that they
find there their flesh soon loses its fine flavor, and they become
more or less “‘sedgy” or “fishy” to the taste. In hard winters,
when the flats are covered with ice, these Ducks are half
starved. ‘They soon become very thin and have little food
value. In such winters Ducks of several species have been
picked up dead from starvation and cold. They have enough
to contend with at that season of the year, and no hunter
should be allowed to disturb them or take advantage of their
necessities.
528 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
When the ponds are covered with ice those fresh-water
Ducks which remain in the north are compelled to go to the
open springs, as they require fresh water to drink. Care for
their safety compels them to remain at sea or in some open
bay during the day, but at night necessity drives them to the
springs. Here the gunner lies concealed to kill them. Some
even cut holes in the ice to attract them. A gunner near
Boston told me that during a “‘cold snap” he fired both barrels
into a flock of Black Ducks on the ice, killing eleven, and
found them so nearly starved as to be reduced to “skin and
bones.”
The following letter from Dr. George Bird Grinnell bears
upon this point: —
“Ducks should not be shot after January 1, because many
of these birds mate in January, and in February and in the
following months are preparing for the nesting duties of early
summer. The birds which are chiefly shot for the market are
the non-diving Ducks, of which the Black Duck is the only one
found in considerable numbers in Massachusetts. These birds
in winter have the greatest difficulty in existing. The fresh-
water ponds and spring holes, where they naturally feed and
drink, are frozen, and the mud flats, where they might feed in
cold weather, are often covered with ice, so that food is
absolutely inaccessible. They cannot, like the sea Ducks,
dive to great depths in search of shell-fish. They therefore
seek out the few warm springs that may still be open, and
congregate there, searching for food, and the gunner who
learns of their presence at such a place may destroy the starving
birds in great numbers.
“T learned my lesson on this subject in Connecticut in the
winter of 1875-76. It was a very hard winter, and almost
all the feeding and drinking places were closed by the cold,
while the mud and sand flats were piled high with ice far out
into the Sound. I learned that a flock of two hundred or three
hundred Black Ducks came at night to an open warm spring,
and going there shot two or three as they came in, and prepared
to have great sport. When I got these birds in my hand I
found them a mass of feathers and bones, for the breast
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 529
muscles had shrunk away from starvation, so that it hardly
seemed that the birds could fly. I stopped shooting, and took
the trouble to show the birds to a number of local gunners, all
of whom agreed that it was a shame to shoot birds that were
having so hard a time, and no local gunners shot Black Ducks
again that winter.
“T believe that if the unprejudiced opinions of marketmen
could be taken on this point they would agree that birds shot
in New England in winter and spring are too thin in flesh and
too fishy in flavor to be a popular food, and the average gun-
ner — if the matter were brought to his attention and explained
to him — has too much sense of fair play to wish to destroy
the birds under such conditions.”
Even the diving Ducks, like the Old-squaws, sometimes
are reduced greatly by starvation and cold during unusually
cold seasons. At such times starving birds become reckless.
Mackay states that during the winter of 1888, when the sea
about Nantucket was covered with ice, two men covered them-
selves with sheets and lay down on the ice beside a crack near
a jetty on the north shore, and there killed with fishing poles
about sixty Old-squaws in a little over an hour. They found
on examining the Ducks that they were valueless, except for
their feathers, owing to their emaciated condition. Let all
true sportsmen, then, join in the movement to close the shoot-
ing season on the first day of January, and let all men lay
aside the gun then and give the birds a chance.
Summer Shooting.
Summer shooting is nearly as destructive to game birds,
wild-fowl and shore birds as is spring shooting. No one now
advocates the summer shooting of upland game birds, but
many now living can remember when July and August Wood-
cock shooting was defended in the sportsmen’s journals by
both market hunters and sportsmen. As late as 1889 August
Woodcock shooting was permitted by law in the enlightened
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It was not until the breed-
ing Woodcock were nearly exterminated that laws finally were
530 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
passed prohibiting summer Woodcock shooting. All summer
shooting should be forbidden; it is too destructive to the birds.
In summer the schools and colleges are closed, and all the pupils
and teachers are on vacation. Professional men, store clerks,
office boys and thousands of employees in various industries
take their vacations then. Where it is legal to shoot any
game in July and August thousands of boys and men will be
in the field with guns shooting the birds. The great majority
of these people do not know the law. They only know that it
is legal to shoot, and they shoot ad libitum. Many idle people
camp out in summer and wander about with guns. Even the
sheep and poultry suffer at the hands of such campers. I
never yet have met a summer vacationist in the field with a
gun who, when questioned, knew the law under which he was
shooting, and not one in a hundred knows enough about the
birds to be able to comply with the law if he knows it. They
are largely boys and young men who, laboring under the im-
pression that they are shooting Plover, chase Peeps, or who
pursue Spotted Sandpipers supposing that they are shooting
Upland Plover or Wilson’s Snipe.
Many of these summer gunners come from other States,
and have never taken the trouble to inquire what the game
laws of Massachusetts require. They shoot any bird of large
size, whether it is protected by law or not, and some of them
indiscriminately slaughter small birds. Summer _ shooting
gives an excuse for lawbreaking gunners, particularly the
foreign element, to be out after game, and it is well known
that these people kill birds of all kinds and their young.
Summer shooting has already destroyed or driven away most
of the shore birds which once bred or summered in New
England. A good part of the summer shooting is done by
campers along the shores and marshes of the sea-coast, or
about the inland lakes and rivers. Such shooting tends to
break up and destroy the breeding of Black Ducks and any
other Ducks which may chance to summer here, and on this
account alone it should be prohibited. Boys shooting in sum-
mer kill game birds of all kinds, old and young. Many native
Ducks or their half-grown young are killed by these gunners.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 53]
Summer gunning along populous beaches, where little
Peeps and Ringnecks are the principal game, is annoying and
even dangerous to women and children who live there or go
there for recreation or bathing. One lady relates that a young
gunner shooting at some tiny Sandpipers on the beach wounded
her with some of the shot. Another states that a charge of
shot fired at a flying bird came into the window where she and
her sister were sitting. Two women were rowing in a boat
near the shore when a charge of shot was fired into the boat.
Women and children have been injured and killed by these
youthful gunners, and occasionally one shoots himself or one
of his companions. ‘The majority of the people who now
summer on our beaches, and who do not shoot, prefer to see
the little Sandpipers and Plover running unmolested on the
sands, and to be spared the spectacle of boys afoot or men in
automobiles pursuing, crippling and slaughtering such innocent
little birds in the name of sport. The greater part of the birds
which are killed in summer belong to these smaller species,
which should be protected by law at all times. If they were
protected in summer they would soon become common on
our beaches throughout the warmer months. If they are not
thus protected it requires no prophet to foresee their final
extinction. There are so many chances for enjoyment in
summer with the fishing, tennis, golf, motoring, sailing, boat-
ing and bathing that shooting privileges at that season are
unnecessary.
Settlement and Agriculture as a Cause for the Decrease of
Wild-fowl.
Notwithstanding the fact that the unrestricted killing of
wild-fowl for the market at all seasons has been the chief cause
of their decrease, the breaking up of their breeding grounds
has assumed, in recent years, an importance almost as great.
Formerly the northern tier of States and a large part of the
Canadian northwest formed a great breeding place for wild
Ducks, Geese and Swans; but within the past thirty years all
this has changed.
592 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
The prairie regions of central Canada, including large por-
tions of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, join the north-
eastern part of Montana, the northern half of North Dakota
and the northwestern corner of Minnesota, all of which once
was a paradise for water-fowl. At the close of the war of the
rebellion this great region, two hundred miles wide by over
four hundred miles in length, with its countless lakes, ponds,
streams and marshes, was one great breeding colony of wild-
fowl, where hundreds of thousands reared their young in se-
curity, almost unmolested by man. From this great colony
the various species extended their breeding grounds in lesser
numbers as far as South Dakota, southern Wisconsin, the
Kankakee marshes of JTllinois and Indiana, parts of south-
western Minnesota and the lakes of north-central Iowa. “In
1864,” says Prof. W. W. Cooke, referring to southern Wiscon-
sin, ““every pond hole and every damp depression had its
brood of young ducks.” ! Within the next fifteen years the
farmers changed from grain raising to dairying. The marshes
were drained and the breeding grounds for wild-fowl were
gone. The birds disappeared with them. Regions in Ihnois,
Towa and Minnesota, where a dozen or more species of duck
commonly bred as late as 1885, were almost deserted by them
in the year 1906. The great “duck paradise’? was invaded
by the railroads. The Northern Pacific cut across it in Min-
nesota and North Dakota. A line was built north to Winni-
peg; other branches were built later, and the Canadian Pacific
was pushed forward from Winnipeg to the Pacific, crossing
the most extensive breeding grounds of wild-fowl on the
continent.
From 1880 to 1900 the population of the States and Prov-
inces crossed by these railroads increased many-fold. When
in 1888 I passed through this vast region, via the Canadian
Pacific, many of the great duck grounds near the railroad
had become wheat fields, and most of the wild-fowl were gone.
Trainloads of immigrants were coming continually. Since
that time a flood of immigration from the United States has
augmented that from the Old World. The agricultural ex-
1 Cooke, W. W., U. S. Dept. of Agr., Biol. Surv., Bull. No. 26, 1906, p. 11.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 51536)
periment stations of Canada have introduced and _ perfected
wheat that will mature in the short summers of the north.
Another railroad across the continent is projected and will be
built. Surveys for railways to Alaska and Hudson Bay have
begun. Steamboat lines have been established on the rivers
of the north. In all this region the shallow marshes and de-
pressions in the prairie will be drained wherever it is possible,
and the birds will be driven out, until in time there will be no
place left for them but the ponds in the Barren Grounds and
the tundra of the far north. It is probable that many of the
most valuable species are not hardy enough to breed in these
arctic and sub-arctic lands. Within twenty-five years, there-
fore, there will be few great breeding cclonies of some of the
most highly prized food Ducks, such as the Canvas-back, the
Redhead, the Shoveller and the Blue-winged Teal. The drain-
ing of swamps and marshes, and their reclamation for agri-
cultural purposes, eventually will destroy many of the best
breeding places for wild-fowl throughout this continent. The
future supply must come largely from such small colonies and
scattered pairs as may be allowed to nest and rear their young
in favorable spots in settled regions.
Night Shooting.
There is good ground for the belief that night shooting at
any time or place should be absolutely prohibited, for noth-
ing 1s more certain to drive birds of any kind away from any
locality where it is practiced. Inland ponds where night
shooting is allowed are deserted by water-fowl eventually,
and none can be attracted to them except by the use of live
decoys. The Black Duck is one of the first to leave such ponds,
and old gunners say that it will not return to ponds where it
has been shot at in the night unless driven by necessity, as is
the case sometimes in winter, when most of its drinking places
are frozen over. If the birds are persecuted all day and all
night they soon will leave for some other region, where they
can find more safety and a chance to rest. Wild Ducks feed
normally during the day and in the dusk of morning and
534 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
evening. They prefer to feed by daylight, although many
species also feed on moonlit nights. The surface-feeding
Ducks, however, can feed better at night than the diving Ducks,
which must have a good light in order to see their food at the
bottom. Fresh-water wild-fowl are harassed so much in the
daytime in Massachusetts that many of them fly to the salt
water by day, where, in the sounds or larger bays, or even at
sea, they can find rest; or they hide in swamps or go to reser-
voirs, where they are protected. Under these circumstances
they go to the fresh-water ponds, marshes or rivers mainly at
night, or when driven in by storms in the daytime. If they
are harassed at night in these retreats, and so deprived of the
opportunity to feed and drink, they will desert our inhospitable
coast and pass on to regions where, in the larger swamps
and fresh-water bays, they may find a greater degree of safety.
Mr. E. T. Carbonnell writes that Geese were very plentiful
in the spring of 1909 on Kildare River, P. E. I. Day shoot-
ing merely frightened them up or down the river; but one
night a few shots were fired at them, and the next day not a
Goose was seen the whole length of the river. The same
thing happened in East River in the fall.
Mr. Tallett, president of the Jefferson County, N. Y.,
Sportsmen’s Association, says that from his experience he
believes that in no way can the Black Duck be driven away
from a favorite breeding place more quickly than by night
shooting. The great preponderance of testimony given by
experienced gunners before legislative hearings in many
States is against night shooting of water-fowl and game
birds, and night shooting is now forbidden by law in many
regions.
Audubon tells how night shooting where it was practiced
drove out the Prairie Chicken. It slays the Grouse while
budding and the roosting Wild Turkey, taking them at a
disadvantage at a time when they should never be disturbed
by the gunner.
Wherever night shooting has been prohibited for a series
of years there is no difficulty in securing a bag of birds in
daylight.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. S166)
Pursuing Wild-fowl in Boats.
The use of boats in chasing wild-fowl and in shooting at
them on their feeding grounds always results in driving them
away, and wherever this is practiced continually the birds
become scarce. This practice and night shooting have been
responsible, in part, for the disappearance of most wild-fowl
from the ponds and rivers of the interior of Massachusetts,
and from certain bays and harbors along the coast, and so
long as it is continued, we cannot expect numbers of wild-fowl
to remain in such places during the shooting season. This
fact was recognized early in the history of Massachusetts,
and a law to prevent it was enacted in 1710; but this lapsed
after the revolution.
The practice of shooting wild-fowl from sailboats is an
exhilarating sport, and often is quite successful with sea-fowl
in a stiff breeze and a choppy sea. Sometimes the birds are
slow to leave the water under such conditions. They are
obliged to rise against the wind, and if the boat is sailed down
wind in approaching them they must rise toward it, and so
give the gunner in a fast-sailing boat a close shot. I have
driven a small sloop in a squall within a few feet of a Red-
breasted Merganser. The excitement of handling the boat
skilfully and smartly, snatching the gun at the right moment
and shooting accurately from the unstable shifting deck, the
tension necessitated in steering, the swift and accurate sweep
down the tossing seas to pick up the dead birds — all tend to
make this a sport for men. Nevertheless, nothing will so
surely drive birds away from their feeding grounds, except
chasing them with power boats. The use of sailboats, row-
boats and canoes on ponds and rivers in pursuing and shooting
at Ducks has a similar effect. On the other hand, a reasonable
amount of shooting from the shore will not disturb them much
if they are not pursued. It is largely due to a recognition
of this fact, and to a special law prohibiting the pursuit of
wild-fowl in boats, that Martha’s Vineyard has now the
best duck-shooting in Massachusetts. Formerly the gunners
themselves observed an unwritten law forbidding the pursuit of
536 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
fowl on the ponds. One man (an outsider), defying public
sentiment, succeeded in driving most of the Ducks out of
one of the larger ponds in one day by pursuing them in a
boat and shooting at them. A law resulted, prohibiting this
pastime on the ponds of Martha’s Vineyard.
The Use of Live Decoys.
The use of live decoys for attracting wild-fowl is a practice
which, in America, seems to have originated in Massachusetts.
It has become a Massachusetts institution which has many
stalwart defenders, and much money has been invested in
shooting stands where shooting over live decoys is practiced.
Sir Charles Lyell (1842) speaks of a pond at East Weymouth
where he saw a single live Goose anchored in the water with
some wooden decoys. He here saw the industrious cobblers,
each sitting at his labor, stitching brogans for the southern
negroes, with his loaded gun lying by his side. The cobbler
worked an hour or two on his shoes, which brought but
twenty cents a pair, and then seizing his gun shot a Goose,
which brought, in the market, the price of several pairs of
brogans.!
Shooting over live decoys has come into general use. It
has spread over a considerable part of the Atlantic coast, and
unless checked by law it is destined to extend over the entire
country. As the game became less plentiful, and prices rose,
elaborate blinds were built, larger numbers of stool birds
were used and quarters were provided in the blinds where
several cobblers could work. The shooting stand became a
veritable fort, —each loophole supplied with its gun, and
all screened and hidden by trees or bushes, weeds and brush,
so placed as to disguise its purpose and construction. The
men ate, slept, lived and worked in it during the shooting
season. In some cases one man was kept busy much of his
time watching and tending the birds, liberating and calling in
the decoys, and in general caretaking. Finally, shoe ma-
chinery took away the cobbler’s occupation, and since then a
1 Lyell, Sir Charles: Travels in the United States; Second Visit, 1849, Vol. 1, p. 99.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 537
change has occurred in stand shooting. As the birds became
fewer and harder to obtain, sportsmen, perceiving the pos-
sibilities of these stands and decoys, began to invest their
money in them, until now many are in the hands of wealthy
or well-to-do sportsmen.
In some of these stands the keepers use electric signals to
call the gunners from bed or board to the outer walls. In
some cases more than a hundred live Geese or Duck decoys
are used, some of which are trained to fly out over the lake,
and so call the wild birds down and toll them in. The wild
birds seem to lose most of their natural caution under such
circumstances, and swim boldly up to the stand, even coming
out upon the shore, at times, almost under its walls. When
the greatest number of birds can be killed at one shot, all
the gunners make ready and fire at the word of command.
In some stands a second volley is given the birds as they
rise. In most of the stands the rule is to shoot only at the
sitting birds. If the gunners succeed in killing the adult birds,
the young, though frightened at the first discharge, may return
again to the place where the bodies of their parents are still
lying on the water, and give the sportsmen a chance for another
volley. It sometimes happens that the entire flock is taken
in this way. Huntington tells of watching a gunner with live
decoys who killed all but one of a small flock of Geese, and
finally got that one when it returned to investigate. Usually
this stand shooting was a form of market hunting. The plan
and purpose of the gunners seemed to be to kill as many birds
as possible. There was an intense rivalry between the stands
at the different ponds, each seeking to outdo the other. In most
of them, all the birds that could be marketed were sold, and if
one of the owners wished to have a bird that he had shot, he
paid for it. The game sold usually went toward paying the
expenses of up-keep. Since the above was written the sale
of wild-fowl has been prohibited by law in Massachusetts.
An account of this kind of decoying at Silver Lake was
published some years ago in Forest and Stream, by one of
the participants, wherein it was stated that sixty-eight Geese
were killed at one stand in twelve hours. Nothing is said
538 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
about how many were killed at the other stands, which also
were firing similar volleys.?
Night shooting is (or was) commonly practiced at these
stands. Many correspondents seem to believe that stand
shooting will exterminate all Geese and Ducks eventually, or
drive them out of the country. They therefore protest against
this kind of shooting.
Mr. Nathaniel A. Eldridge of Chatham writes: “I think
the greatest enemy the Black Duck has is the pond shooters
who use live Duck decoys, decoy them in to places which are
practical forts, and then clean up whole flocks. Ducks have
not the slightest chance.”
Mr. Fred F. Dill of North Eastham writes: “I am a pot-
hunter and make one-fourth of my living with my gun. I use
live decoys and shoot on fresh water. If laws were passed
prohibiting this it would cost me one hundred and fifty dollars
a year, but the preservation of the game demands that it
should be done.”
Mr. Edward B. Robinson, Jr., of Cataumet says that more
Ducks and Geese are killed by a few gunners at Snake Pond,
John’s Pond and Mashpee Pond by the use of live decoys
than all the other gunners kill in that section of the Cape.
Mr. Jonathan H. Jones of Waquoit says that if the people
of Massachusetts do not want to see all of the fresh-water
wild-fowl killed or driven away the use of live decoys must be
stopped. If the Black Ducks and Geese, he says, cannot go
to the fresh-water ponds in safety at night to drink and wash
up they will desert the region. He finds that now these birds
are nearly all shot at the fresh-water ponds, or driven away,
and that those which escape do not stop as they used to, but
pass on. He has a small stand anda large number of live
decoys, but is willing to give up all for the benefit of the sport.
Nevertheless, there is something to be said for the pond
shooters. Most cf them oppose spring shooting. Mr. B. H.
Currier says that without live decoys it would be very diffi-
cult now to kill Ducks or Geese in these ponds, and that the
pond gunners of eastern Massachusetts would have to close
1 Grinnell, George Bird: American Duck Shooting, 1901, pp. 268-273.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 539
up their stands and go out of business were the use of live de-
coys prohibited. As it is, many flocks never stop at all. Dr.
John C. Phillips has kindly given me records from three stands
which show the number of Ducks and Geese shot, the number
alighting in the ponds and the number seen passing. These
records do not show such destruction of birds as one might
be led to expect from the accounts of those who do not par-
ticipate in this kind of shooting. None of these records, how-
ever, would compare in numbers killed with those seen or shot
at Silver Lake, or others of the larger ponds. In 1908 Dr.
Phillips finds that only fourteen Geese were killed at Wenham
Lake and ninety-six at Oldham Pond, while three hundred
and twenty-five were shot at Silver Lake. There are many
days when the pond gunner does not get a shot, and some
seasons when he gets few birds. The sport is often a costly
one, and the outgo probably far exceeds the income. Never-
theless, there can be no excuse for excessive shooting. Even
birds have some rights, and they should be given a chance for
their lives. They should have the opportunity to drink and
feed in these ponds unmolested at night, and the sportsmen
should see to it that any objectionable and unnecessary fea-
tures of pond shooting are eliminated. If the sale of wild-
fowl were prohibited by law it probably would reduce the
number of birds killed by stand shooting.
The Elements: Storms and Cold.
Unseasonable storms and cold winters sometimes destroy
tremendous numbers of birds, and their effect is felt period-
ically by the Woodcock and the Bob-white particularly. Cold
and wet breeding seasons terribly deplete the game birds. Any
species, the increase of which is destroyed every year by
shooting, will soon disappear if unable to raise its young. A
single cold, wet breeding season will reduce a species from
a condition of abundance to one of scarcity, as was the case
with the Ruffed Grouse in 1907. If the birds were unmolested
by the gunners for a few years thereafter they would soon
regain their former abundance; but if shooting is continued,
540 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
the increase in numbers comes more slowly, and the bird may
never equal its former abundance.
In 1895 nearly all the Bluebirds of New England were
destroyed by a great storm and cold wave in the south; but
as they were protected by law at all times they became almost
as plentiful as ever a few years later, while the Woodcock,
which was less affected by the freeze, but is shot in all the
States, hardly has begun to approach its former numbers.
Every gunner knows that forest fires during the nesting
season are destructive to game birds. This may be remedied
by the public care of our woodlands, better protection against
fires and the electrification of all our railroads. One of the
chief sources of forest fires in this country is the coal-burning
locomotive.
Epidemic Diseases.
There are rumors of disease among the Ruffed Grouse and
Bob-white, and occasionally some disease appears among wild-
fowl. A few years ago an epidemic was reported among wild-
fowl on the St. Lawrence River, and now (1910) we are told
that a disease exists in Utah which is said to affect Geese and
Ducks of all kinds, the smaller Herons, the Plover, Snipe
and nearly all birds. This disease was first noticed in the feed-
ing grounds near or bordering the Great Salt Lake, and has
gradually increased and progressed until the infected area in-
cludes the entire Salt Lake valley, and the infection includes
practically all the birds there.
In a letter received by Forest and Stream from Dr. W. R.
Stewart he says, ‘‘our native birds are practically all dead.”
This refers to birds of all kinds; even chickens that were fed
on the viscera of dead Ducks died by hundreds. The infection
is a diarrhoea or cholera, with a watery discharge from the
eyes during its latter stages, and ends fatally in a few days.
When sick birds were put in clean pens and given clean food
and water most of them recovered.!
This disease is believed to be what is commonly known as
Duck cholera, which often affects domesticated water-fowl
1 Stewart, W. R.: Forest and Stream, October 15, 1910, Vol. Ixxv, No. 16, pp. 616, 617.
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CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 54l
in summer when a sufficient supply of pure water is not avail-
able; it has been diagnosed as a form of coccidiosis, similar to,
if not identical with, that which is believed to cause white
diarrhoea in chicks and blackhead in turkeys, and is very
fatal to Grouse and Bob-whites (see page 383). As poultry
raising increases, the danger of contagious diseases among game
birds is likely to increase also, as chickens and turkeys spread
coccidiosis. Its spread in Utah may have been facilitated by
a dry season and low water.
Natural Enemies.
Those who promulgate the belief that the depletion of
native game birds is due to their native natural enemies are
merely deluding themselves and injuring the cause of game
protection. We know from the accounts of the early explorers
and settlers that when this country was first settled, and
game of all kinds was abundant, Hawks, Eagles, panthers,
wolves, lynxes, raccoons, minks, weasels and other enemies
of the game (some of which are now extirpated from our
covers) were far more abundant than they are to-day, and
we find now that where game is rare its natural enemies also
usually are rare. ‘The same cause that has swept away the
game has destroyed its natural enemies also. Natural enemies
of the game are necessary. The Hawk and the fox tend to
keep the game in good condition. They break up the coveys,
keep the birds alert and active, and compel them to exercise
not only their muscles but their wits. They kill off the slow,
the feeble, the diseased and the unfit, for these are most easily
eaptured and killed. Probably they keep down the excess of
male birds, which so often occurs on game preserves where
the natural enemies have been killed off. All gamekeepers say
that an excess of male gallinaceous birds tends to prevent
breeding.
It is the mission of the native natural enemies to help
preserve birds, to keep them up to full efficiency and at
the same time to prevent their increase in numbers beyond
the limit of safety. An increase beyond this limit would
542 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
exhaust the food supply of the game and bring about starva-
tion. This the natural enemies of the game prevent by holding
its increase within a safe limit. Here we see the working out
of nature’s laws for the conservation of the game.
The larger natural enemies befriend the game by holding
in check the smaller enemies. The Hawk, Eagle and fox
keep minks, weasels, rats, field mice, shrews and other small
destructive mammals in check, which otherwise would destroy
most of the eggs and young of game birds. The natural
enemies of the game, therefore, are necessary to its prosperity.
Where they are too numerous they should be reduced in
number, but never exterminated. Hunters naturally kill
game enemies, and therefore the numbers of so-called vermin
are depleted as those of the game are reduced, and by the
same cause. All the fur-bearing animals which are regarded
as vermin by the sportsman and the gamekeeper are the game
of the trapper, and furs now bring so high a price that these
animals, including even the lowly skunk and muskrat, are
growing scarce. The decrease of the game cannot be laid at
their door. Nevertheless, these natural enemies, or vermin as
they are called, certainly help to keep down the numbers of
the game wherever man attempts to increase the game on a
small area to numbers far beyond what nature provides, as on
the game farm or preserve.
Many hunters regard the skunk as one of the most de-
structive game enemies because it sometimes steals the eggs
or young of game birds; but the skunk is very useful on the
farm, and feeds largely on mice, also on potato beetles, white
grubs, grasshoppers, crickets, cutworms and other destructive
insect pests, of which it destroys large numbers, and indirectly
it is one of the chief protectors of young wild Ducks. The
following statement by Dr. A. K. Fisher of the Biological Sur-
vey illustrates the close and intimate relations that diverse
forms of animal life bear to one another, and how harm, rather
than good, may sometimes result from the destruction of the
natural enemies of birds. Skunks frequent the shores of lakes,
rivers and sloughs in spring, and devour most of the turtles’
eggs that are deposited there.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 543
**An extensive marsh bordering a lake in northern New
York formed a suitable home for numerous ducks, rails,
snapping turtles, frogs and other aquatic life. The turtles de-
posited their eggs in abundance in the sand of the old beach.
These delicacies attracted the attention of the skunks of the
neighborhood, and their nightly feasts so reduced the total
output of eggs that only a small percentage of the young
survived to reach the protective shelter of the marsh. As
time went on conditions changed. Skunk fur became fashion-
able and commanded a good price. The country boy, ever
on the alert for an opportunity to add to his pocket money,
sallied forth and captured the luckless fur bearer wherever
found, so that within a comparatively short time the skunks
almost wholly disappeared. When this check on their increase
was removed, the snapping turtles hatched in great numbers,
and scrambled off in all directions into. the marsh. When
their numbers had been properly controlled by the destruction
of a large proportion of their eggs, their food supply was
adequate, but when they had increased many-fold the supply
proved insufficient. Finally, through force of circumstances,
the turtles added ducklings to their fare, until the few ducks
that refused to leave the marsh paid the penalty of their per-
sistency by rarely bringing to maturity more than one or two
young. It is not surprising that this great aggregation of tur-
tles, containing the essential of delicious soup, should have
attracted the attention of the agents of the marketmen and
restaurant keepers. The final chapter, the readjustment of
conditions, may be briefly told: The marsh became a scene of
great activity, where men and boys caught the voracious
chelonians, and bags, boxes and barrels of them were shipped
away. There was also a depreciation in the value of skunk
skins, with a corresponding loss of interest on the part of the
trapper, so the progeny of the surviving skunks congregated
at the old beach and devoured the eggs of the turtles that had
enjoyed a brief period of prosperity. The broods of ducks
now remained unmolested and attracted other breeding birds,
with the result that the old marsh reverted to its original
populous condition.”
544 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
The maintenance of the biologic balance between the many
diverse forms of animal life cannot be adequately discussed
within the limits of this volume; but a few observations on
some of the natural enemies of game birds will not be out of
place.
There are a few animals which are so sagacious as to be
able to maintain themselves and become so numerous locally
at times as to do too much injury to the game in spite of the
ordinary hunter. Among these are the fox and the Crow.
Probably the fox is nearly as numerous now in Massa-
chusetts as it ever was. Its chief food supply of insects, field
mice and other small animals is abundant, for man does not
hunt them, but protects them by killing the Hawks and Owls
and other enemies that feed on them, and it can draw at
need on poultry and game for additional supplies. We have
destroyed the wolves and all other large natural enemies that
were wont to prey on the fox, and now we discourage fox
hunting and trapping by protecting and increasing the deer
and prohibiting the use of scented bait. There are now so
many deer in Massachusetts that many a hunter will not hunt
foxes with dogs lest his dogs get on the trail of a deer, —a
breach of the game laws for which he is likely to have his
dogs shot by a game warden and himself haled into court and
fined as a lawbreaker. As a result of these conditions foxes
have so increased in parts of Massachusetts and other New
England States that they have become a menace to the poul-
try raiser and a scourge to the game. I spent a day in the
woods in the spring of 1910 in East Northfield, Hampshire
County, near the Vermont line, in a fine Grouse country, and
did not see a Grouse or hear one drum. I visited during the
day two fox dens, and found feathers of the Grouse scattered
about the entrance of each. Mr. A. O. Howard and other
gunners there informed me that Grouse were then rare in a
large section of that region, extending well up toward Brattle-
boro, Vt., and that foxes were abundant. Mr. Howard told
me that in the winter he had seen traces showing where the
foxes had caught Grouse in the snow, and showed me photo-
graphs exhibiting fox tracks and the remains of the feast. In
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 545
a country where foxes are so numerous and Grouse so scarce
foxes must check the increase of the game. Complaints re-
garding similar conditions have come from many sections of
the State, and poultry raisers complain loudly of damage to
their business by foxes. The fox is useful as a mouse destroyer,
but wherever its numbers are excessive the game will suffer.
The Crow, like the fox, is so astute that its numbers some-
times increase locally until it exercises a serious restraint upon
the multiplication of game. It destroys both eggs and young
of Grouse, Bob-whites, Ducks and other birds. Flocks of
Crows have been known to attack and kill full-grown Grouse
and hares. The Crow is useful as a destroyer of insects in
the grass-land, but it is not a bird for the game preserver to
protect.
The few bird-killmg Hawks which inhabit Massachusetts are
always fair game for the gunner, and are kept within reasonable
bounds. The most pernicious enemies of birds come from the
ranks of those animals which are introduced from foreign
countries by man. In this list we may include the cat, the
dog, the rat and the hog.
Cats which have run wild are known to be most mis-
chievous. They roam the woods and fields in countless num-
bers. I have known fourteen, half fed, to be kept on one farm.
Thousands are abandoned every year at summer homes in
the country when the owners go back to the city. Cats are
so destructive that their introduction to islands in the sea
has been followed by the absolute extinction of certain birds,
rabbits and other small animals. European gamekeepers
say that nothing can be done on a game preserve until the
cats are killed.
A gentleman in Massachusetts who undertook to raise
Pheasants a mile from any village found that his gamekeeper
was obliged to kill a great number of cats. The cat, being an
introduced animal, is far more injurious to game than the
native natural enemies, and should be eliminated so far as
possible from the field.
Dogs, when allowed to run at large in the woods and fields
in spring and summer, destroy numbers of birds’ eggs and
546 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
young birds. Many farmers allow their dogs to roam at will.
Such dogs often hunt singly or in pairs. Hounds and bird-
dogs are given free range in spring and summer. Mongrel
curs are allowed to run loose everywhere. Some people do
not allow their dogs to eat meat, believing that meat has a
bad effect, but they permit them to run at will in the woods
and fields. One might as well turn out a ravening wolf among
the nesting game birds as to let loose such a meat-hungry
dog among them. Sometimes dogs catch full-grown Grouse
and Bob-whites. Several sportsmen have told me that they
have seen their dogs catch mature, unwounded Grouse, and
a Grouse was brought to me which showed on dissection
that it had been caught and killed by a dog. On inquiry it
was learned that a bird-dog, hunting in the snow, brought it
in. I once owned a dog that was seen to catch young Pheasants
and full-grown gray squirrels.
On the northern breeding grounds of the wild-fowl, near
the shores of the Arctic Sea, a short supply of fish results in
the Eskimo dogs being turned out to seek their own living,
with a consequent serious destruction of wild-fowl in the
nesting season. The general introduction of reindeer for beasts
of burden in arctic America would help in the preservation of
our wild-fowl.
Rats are very destructive to the eggs and young of game
birds during the summer. They roam a great deal in the
woods and fields. They are particularly pernicious on game
preserves where game birds are raised in large numbers, and
they are, in many cases, the most destructive enemies of the
game in such localities.
Hogs, when allowed to run at large, destroy many of the
eggs of game birds, and when enclosed in a field they get all
such eggs. The hog in New England, however, is not so de-
structive as in the south, where, in many cases, it still is allowed
to run at large.
A few species of bird-killing Hawks are destructive to game,
and any of the larger Hawks or Owls are likely to kill young
game birds at times. Snapping turtles, large fish, such as
pike, and large frogs often kill young ducklings. Whenever
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 547
game farming becomes established in this country all the
enemies of the game will be well held in check, and their in-
fluence on the increase of game will be negligible.
Telegraph, Telephone and Trolley Wires and Other
Obstructions.
Some of the improvements and inventions of this era
cause much mortality among birds. Lighthouses, electric
light towers and wires, trolley and telegraph wires, etc., maim
or kill thousands of birds, which, in nocturnal flight, especially
in migration, dash themselves against these obstructions
erected in the air. Fortunately, most of the game birds seem
to escape such collisions, but Rails and Woodcock, which fly
low in their migrations, suffer severely. High wire fences,
such as are used for deer parks, kill many Grouse, which dash
against them, as they often do against the walls of houses
situated among trees or near woods.
MINOR CAUSES OF THE DECREASE OF BIRDS.
There are many minor causes that are assigned for the
depletion of upland game birds, some of which appreciably
affect the numbers of birds. Among these are certain alter-
ations in agricultural conditions, such as changes from grain
raising to dairying, which have deprived these birds of a food
supply that they formerly utilized. The use of the mowing
machine and the early cutting of grass disturb their nests.
Lead poisoning is one of the minor causes of the decrease
of wild-fowl and game birds which may in time assume con-
siderable importance in localities where much shooting is done.
Lead Poisoning.
Hon. George Bird Grinnell, editor of Forest and Stream,
called attention to this unexpected danger in 1894, when its
effects were first noticed in America, although they were re-
ported in England in 1902 among Pheasants and Partridges,
and commented on in the London Field. Since 1894 cases of
548 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
lead poisoning have been reported from English preserves
where game is raised in quantities and much shooting of
driven game is practiced. Occasional articles have appeared
in the press calling attention to a disease among wild Ducks
called “‘croup,” which is caused by lead poisoning. The Ducks
are self-poisoned, and their condition is brought about by
picking up and swallowing shot. ‘There are some favorite
shooting grounds where tons of shot have been fired at wild-
fowl. Here the birds, in their search for sand and gravel as
an aid to digestion, swallow quantities of shot, which have
been scattered over the marshes, along the shores, and in the
shallow waters, where Ducks feed. The shot is disintegrated
in the stomach by trituration and attrition, and lead particles
are absorbed into the tissues. The trouble is common in
certain localities among Ducks, Geese and Swans. The symp-
toms are a rattling in the throat and the dropping of a yellow-
ish fluid from the bill. The bird breathes hard, becomes weak
and helpless and finally dies.
Dissection reveals pellets of lead in the stomach or gizzard,
the lining of which becomes corroded and can be picked away
in pieces. The intestines and rectum become inflamed and the
liver is very dark. At Galveston, Stephenson Lake and Lake
Surprise, Tex., at points on Currituck Sound, N.C., and at the
Misqually Flats, Puget Sound, many Ducks have been found
sick and unable to fly from the effects of this poisoning.'
The Destruction of the Feeding Grounds.
Many correspondents attribute the decrease of wild-fowl
and shore birds in Massachusetts to the destruction of their
feeding grounds here. The gradual fillimg up of ponds and
estuaries, the damming of streams for commercial purposes,
the draining of swamps and meadows in the process of convert-
ing them into cranberry bogs, the drying up of small ponds as a
result of eutting off the forest cover, the digging over of flats
and bay bottoms in getting shell-fish, —all have more or less
local effect on the numbers of birds. On Cape Cod the building
1 Grinnell, George Bird: American Duck Shooting, 1901, pp. 598-600.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 549
of cranberry bogs has resulted in some depletion of breeding
Black Ducks, but the reservoirs established for the purpose of
flooding these bogs have in part compensated the birds for the
loss of their former feeding grounds. On the whole, while all
these changes have produced a local decrease of some species,
their influence has been very slight compared with that of
excessive and unregulated shooting in the same localities and
elsewhere.
ERRONEOUS OPINIONS REGARDING THE CAUSES OF THE
DECREASE OF WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
A few correspondents in Massachusetts express the opinion
that the wild-fowl and shore birds are still as plentiful as ever,
but do not come this way now in their annual flights.
It is a common expression that the birds have “‘changed
their line of flight.” This saying is applied more often to
those species which are approaching extinction. This popular
opinion is rarely, if ever, founded on fact. It seems to have
been formed in the mind of some one as a plausible explanation
of the decrease of birds, and then passed from mouth to mouth
until it has taken a strong hold of the popular mind. Wilson,
Ord, Bonaparte and Turnbull seem to have been responsible
for passing this idea down to their posterity. Turnbull, in
his Birds of East Pennsylvania and New Jersey (1869, p. 48),
voices this opinion in the following words: “Since the eastern
provinces have become more densely populated, many of
the larger and more wary species of birds have changed their
course of migration, and now reach the arctic regions by a
route taking them toward the interior of the continent.”
This statement is, I believe, based on a misapprehension of the
facts. Practically all the species which go north by the in-
terior route always went that way. A few of the larger species
which also went up the Atlantic coast are not found here
now, not because they have changed their line of flight, but
because most of the eastern individuals have been extermi-
nated. The few which remained may have followed their
comrades to the west, for when the numbers of a species de-
550 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
crease it tends to contract its range, or to occupy only that
portion of it that is most suitable to its purposes. The bird
which Turnbull names to exemplify this change of flight is
the Whooping Crane, which once inhabited the entire con-
tinent and migrated up and down the Atlantic coast as well
as through the interior. The individuals along the Atlantic
coast were first killed off, then those farther west, until now
the species is nearing extinction. That is the manner in which
the line of flight of the Whooping Crane was changed. It is
of no avail to argue that the bird was so shy that it could not
have been killed off, but must have been driven to the west.
The fact remains that it is now so rare everywhere that it is
exceedingly difficult to get a specimen for a museum or zodlogi-
cal garden. Nevertheless, there is no rule without some ex-
ception. The Passenger Pigeon was obliged, by its great
numbers, periodical scarcity of food and constant persecution,
to change its location and its flight line frequently. Cross-
bills are very erratic in their flights, Robins are great wan-
derers, but I do not recall other remarkable exceptions to this
rule among land birds. It is noted often that a certain species
of Duck will be scarce in a locality for a year, or more. If this
scarcity is quite general and only temporary, it is looked upon
as probably the result of a poor breeding season; but if the
scarcity continues, it usually is assigned by the gunner to a
‘change in the line of flight.”
We get our idea of the flight of birds largely from the
number which stop in our vicinity. Thousands of birds of a
certain species may pass over or by us unseen and unnoticed.
Wilson says that a vessel loaded with wheat was wrecked near
the entrance of Great Egg Harbor, N. J. The wheat floated
out in great quantities, and in a few days the “whole surface
of the bay” was covered with Ducks of a kind unknown to
the people and never seen by them before. The gunners of
the neighborhood had great sport shooting these Ducks for
three weeks, and they sold them at twelve and one-half cents
each. They finally learned that the birds were Canvas-backs,
which they might have sold for from four to six times that sum.
Probably the Canvas-back passes near this coast every year,
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 551
but was unnoted by the inhabitants until it stopped on account
of an unusual supply of food. The fact that it was seen there
that year and not before or afterward does not indicate any
change in its line of flight in that particular year. It is stated
by George B. Sennett that an “unusual flight’ of Swans
occurred in northwestern Pennsylvania on March 22, 1879
(see page 197); but upon reading the account we find that a
sleet storm brought them to earth. A large flight of Swans
undoubtedly passes across the State twice every year in the
migration from the fur countries to the south Atlantic sea-
board and back. Probably they usually fly so high that they
pass unnoticed. Here was no change in the “‘line of flight;’’ no
“unusual flight,” merely a stop at an unusual point. Probably
there is little change in the annual direction of the flight
pursued by any of these birds, except such as may be caused
by scarcity or abundance of food or the accidents of migra-
tion. Early wild-fowl may frequent a certain river one spring
because the ice breaks up earlier than in some other river.
The conditions may change the next year. There are occa-
sions when birds are overtaken by severe storms (which obscure
their outlook), accompanied by high winds, which deflect the
bewildered creatures sometimes hundreds of miles from their
course. Hence the ‘flights’ of shore birds, which sometimes
land on the coast during northeast storms. They are drifted
in by the gale, or are passing high overhead and, becoming
confused, alight. Such storms sometimes drive salt-water
fowl far inland. High winds from the west may sometimes
send to our shores flights of shore birds which are crossing the
country in their regular migration to or from the south Atlantic
coast. It is a well-known fact that as the migration along
the Atlantic coast has lessened in numbers, these flights on
westerly winds have become more noticeable, and this often is
advanced as another proof that the shore birds are not less
numerous but have “changed their line of flight,’ and now
usually pass to the west. This is an error. There always has
been a great flight of birds from the great northwest to the
south Atlantic and Gulf States. The flight on the Atlantic
coast remains the same, except for the great diminution in
Say GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
number and the practical extinction of some species from over-
shooting.
This so-called change of flight is easily explained. A few
families of Knots or Red-breasts, for example, reared in the
same locality in the far north, start down the Atlantic coast in
their migration. Gunners on the Bay of Fundy first decimate
the birds, which then cross to Cape Cod, pass a blind occupied
by an experienced gunner, who gets nearly all of them, and
the next gunner a little farther down the beach kills what
are left. There will be no more of those birds coming down
the Atlantic coast from that nesting place for some time.
This has happened all along the Atlantic coast.
Mr. William R. Sears tells of an instance where fourteen
Summer Yellow-legs came to decoys where two men were
shooting, and eleven were killed there, while the other three
were shot by a gunner at another stand not far away. Mr.
W. D. Carpenter of Nantucket tells me that one day he killed
all the Teal there were in a pond, — fifteen in number.
I know of an instance where a market hunter who was
very skilful called a “bunch” of shore birds and not one
escaped. This is one explanation of the so-called change
in their line of flight,—it is deflected into the pot,—but
there is another. A few birds shot at, injured perhaps, but
not mortally, manage to escape, and, recognizing the points
where their comrades were slain, keep well off shore in the
future, or fly high and perhaps induce their companions to do
likewise. Fishermen and sailors often see or hear such flights
off shore.
Undoubtedly the stream of migration widens or contracts
somewhat with the fluctuations in the numbers of a species.
A good breeding season in the northwest, or better protection
of the birds there, may result in an extension of the migration
wave to the eastward. Under such conditions wild-fowl in-
crease in numbers in New England, while opposite conditions
tend to contract the migration range of the species and narrow
the stream of migration. Undoubtedly the killing off of certain
species in the east has had the latter effect, and I believe that
in this way only have any great or permanent changes in the
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 55S
migration routes of wild-fowl and shore birds taken place in
recent times. Nevertheless, during the winter and in the
season of migration, birds in moving from day to day often
change their daily “fly lines,” sometimes making wide detours
and avoiding places over which they formerly flew, or forsaking
old feeding grounds for new ones. These movements, which
in many cases seem inexplicable, rarely take the birds to such
a distance from their regular migration route that they cannot
readily recognize the familiar landmarks or shores. =. = Verbesina-sp.
Wewberry, = “=. pose 2) a ubese sp:
Elder, : , : . Sambucus canadensis.
Marsh, . : ; 2 : : _ Iva ciliata.
Everlasting, . ‘ ; : _ Anaphalis margaritacea and
Gnaphalium sp.
Flowering dogwood, —_. ‘ , . Cornus florida.
Grape, frost, . : : j Se Vatisesn:
Greenbrier, —. : ao ar. . . Smilax sp.
Haw, : d . ies: : ’ : . Crataegus sp.
Black, . : : ; ; _ Viburnum prunifolium.
Holly, : : , : : . : . Ilex opaca.
Honeysuckle, ; “ae er . . Lonicera sp.
Huckleberry, . : : ; : 5 ; . Gaylussacia sp.
Mulberry, red, : : ; 5 : s . Morus rubra.
Nightshade, . : : : : : ; . Solanum nigrum.
Orange hawkweed, : ; : : : . Meracium aurantiacum.
Palmetto: —
Cabbage, Sabal Palmetto.
Saw, ‘ Sabal serrulata.
Partridge berry, Mitchella repens.
Poison ivy, . , : : ; . . Rhus Toxicodendron.
Ragweed, d : : : ; : . Ambrosia artemisitfolia.
Great, : ‘ : ‘ . Ambrosia trifida.
Rib grass, ; : , : é . Plantago lanceolata.
Rose, : : . Rosa sp.
Sarsaparilla, . ; . Aralia sp.
Sassafras, 2 oe 20>.) 5 2 Sassafras canzjolium:
Solomon’s seal, —. : ; ; ; . Polygonatum sp.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 583
Sour gum,
Strawberry,
Sumach: —
Dwarf,
Scarlet,
Staghorn,
Sunflower,
Thimbleberry,
Trumpet creeper, .
Virginia creeper,
Wax myrtle,
Nyssa sylvatica.
Fragaria sp.
Rhus copallina.
Rhus glabra.
Rhus typhina.
Helianthus annuus.
Rubus occidentalis.
Tecoma radicans.
Psedera quinquefolia.
Myrica cerifera.
SEEDS EATEN BY THE BoB-WHITE.
Acacia,
Ash,
Bean: —
Lima,
Trailing wild,
Pink wild,
Beech,
Bindweed,
Black,
Box elder,
Carpetweed,
Charlock,
Chestnut,
Chickweed,
Climbing false buckwheat, .
Clover: —
Bush, B
Creeping bush,
Hairy bush,
Japan,
Red,
White,
Corn cockle,
Cranesbill,
Dock,
Florida coffee,
Grass: —
Barnyard,
Barbed panicum,
Crab,
Green foxtail,
Sheathed rush,
Acacia sp.
Fraxinus sp.
Phaseolus lunatus.
Strophostyles helvola.
Strophostyles wmbellata.
Fagus grandvfolia.
Convolvulus sp.
Polygonum Convolvulus.
Acer Negundo.
Mollugo verticillata.
Raphanus raphanistrum.
Castanea dentata.
Stellaria media.
Polygonum scandens.
Lespedeza capitata.
Lespedeza repens.
Lespedeza hirta.
Lespedeza striata.
Trifolium pratense.
Trifolium repens.
Agrostemma Githago.
Geranium sp.
Rumex crispus.
Sesbania macrocar pa.
Echinochloa crus-galli.
Panicum barbulatum.
Digitaria sanguinalis.
Setaria viridis.
Sporobolus vagineflorus.
584 GAME BIRDS,
WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Grass — continued.
Slender finger-grass,
Slender spike,
Spreading panicum,
Tall smooth panicum,
Timothy,
Witch,
Yellow foxtail,
Gromwell,
Corn,
Hog peanut,
Hornbeam,
Jewelweed,
Knotweed,
Locust tree,
Lupine,
Morning glory,
Oak: —
Live,
Swamp,
White,
Pea: —
Cowpea,
Downy milk, .
Garden,
Partridge,
Sensitive,
Persicaria,
Pennsylvania,
Pigweed, ean ws
Rough,
Pine; —
Long-leaved,
Scrub,
Prairie rhynchosia,
Psoralea,
Puccoon,
Redbud, .
Red maple,
Rush,
Sedge,
Tussock,
Sida, : :
Skunk cabbage,
Slender paspalum,
Digitaria filiformis.
Uniola laxa.
Panicum dichotomiflorum.
Panicum virgatum.
Phleum pratense.
Panicum capillare.
Setaria glauca.
Lithospermum officinale.
Lithospermum arvense.
Am phicarpa monoica.
Carpinus caroliniana.
Impatiens sp.
Polygonum aviculare.
Robinia Pseudo- Acacia.
Lupinus perennis.
Ipomea sp.
Quercus virginiana.
Quercus palustris.
Quercus alba.
Vigna sinensis.
Galactia volubilis.
Pisum sativum.
Cassia Chamecrista.
Cassia nictitans.
Polygonum lapathifolium.
Polygonum pennsylvanicum.
Chenopodium album.
Amaranthus retroflexus.
Pinus palustris.
Pinus virginiana.
Rhynchosia latifolia.
Psoralea sp.
Lithospermum canescens.
Cercis canadensis.
Acer rubrum.
Scirpus sp.
Cyperus sp.
Carex stricta.
Sida spinosa.
Symplocarpus fetidus.
Paspalum setaceum.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 585
Smartweed,
Spurge: —
Flowering,
Spotted, .
’ Sorrel : —
Sheep,
Yellow,
Texas croton, :
Three-seeded mercury,
Trefoil,
Tick,
Tick,
Vervain, .
Vetch,
Violet,
Witch-hazel,
Polygonum Hydropiper.
Euphorbia corollata.
Euphorbia maculata.
Rumex Acetosella.
Ovalis stricta.
Croton texensis.
Acalypha gracilens.
Lotus sp.
Desmodium nudiflorum.
Desmodium grandiflorum.
Verbena stricta.
Vicia sp.
Viola sp.
Hamamelis virginiana.
The only way in which a region can be made attractive to
Grouse is to provide dense thickets and thick pine groves for
shelter, and to cultivate or save from the woodman’s axe the
plants from which the Grouse get most of their food. The
Ruffed Grouse will eat grain sometimes in winter, but is not
often attracted by it.
A plentiful supply of winter berries, like the barberry, the
sumach and others which hang long on the stem, with such
evergreen plants as laurel and wintergreen, must be available.
The following list contains many of the food plants which
are attractive to the Ruffed Grouse, and this bird is known
to feed upon them all: —
Foop PLANtTs OF THE RUFFED GROUSE.
Acorns: —
Serub oak, .. : : : . : . Quercus ilicifolia.
Scrub chestnut oak, . ; : . Quercus prinoides.
White oak, . : : : : . Quercus alba.
Red oak, : : : : : . Quercus rubra.
Arbor-vite, . : d s ; . Thuja occidentalis.
Aster, ; : . 2 d : . Aster sp.
Avens, . ; : ‘ : : . Geum sp.
Azalea, . ; : : : : : . Rhododendron (Azalea) sp.
Barberry, : ; : : : : _ Berberis vulgaris.
Bayberry, é : : : f : . Myrica carolinensis.
586 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
Beech-drops, .
Beechnuts,
Beggar-ticks, .
Birch buds: —
Canoe,
Black,
Gray,
Yellow, .
Bittersweet vine,
Black alder,
Blackberry (leaves),
Blackberry lily,
Black haw, ,
Black huckleberry,
Bloodroot, :
Blueberry (buds), .
Blueberries,
Bunchberry,
Buttercup,
Catnip,
Chestnuts,
Chickweed,
Cinquefoil,
Cockspur thorn,
Cornel,
Cudweed,
Cultivated plum, .
Domestic cherry,
Elder,
Red, : :
False goat’s beard,
Ferns (fronds),
Feverwort,
Flowering dogwood,
Frostweed,
Greenbrier,
Hazelnuts,
Hemlock (seeds), .
Heuchera,
High-bush cranberry,
Hornbeam (seeds),
Horsetail rush,
Jewelweed,
Live-forever, .
Manzanita,
Epifagus virginiana.
Fagus grandifolia.
Bidens frondosa.
Betula papyrifera.
Betula lenta.
Betula populifolia.
Betula lutea.
Celastrus scandens.
Tlex verticillata.
Rubus sp.
Belamcanda chinensis.
Viburnum prunifolium.
Gaylussacia baccata.
Sanguinaria canadensis.
Vaccinium sp.
V. pennsylvanicum.
Cornus canadensis.
Ranunculus bulbosus.
Nepeta Cataria.
Castanea dentata.
Stellaria media.
Potentilla argentea.
Crategus Crus-galli.
Cornus paniculata.
Gnaphalium purpureum.
Prunus domestica.
Prunus avium.
Sambucus canadensis.
Sambucus racemosa.
Astilbe sp.
Dryopteris spinulosa.
Triosteum perfoliatum.
Cornus florida.
Helianthemum canadense.
Smilax sp.
Corylus americana.
Tsuga canadensis.
Heuchera americana.
Viburnum Opulus.
Carpinus caroliniana.
Equisetum sp.
Impatiens sp.
Sedum sp.
Arctostaphylos sp.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 58/7
Maple (seeds),
Maple-leaved arrow-wood, .
Mayflower (leaves and buds),
Meadow rue, . :
Mountain ash (berries),
Mountain cranberry,
Mulberry,
Nannyberry, .
Partridge berry,
Pepperidge,
Persicaria, : ;
Pitch pine (seeds),
Poisonous laurel,
Poplar (young leaves),
Raspberry,
Black,
Saxifrage,
Scarlet thorn,
Sedges,
Silky cornel,
Smilax,
Snowberry,
Solomon’s seal: —
Hairy,
Smooth, .
Sorrel: —
Sheep,
Yellow,
Speedwell,
Sumach: —
Dwarf,
Scarlet,
Staghorn,
Tick trefoil,
Vetch,
Violet,
Virginia creeper,
Wild black cherry,
Wild crab apple,
Wild grape,
Wild red cherry,
Witch-hazel,
Withe-rod,
Acer rubrum.
Viburnum acerifolium.
Epigea repens.
Thalictrum sp.
(Sorbus) Pyrus americana.
Vaccinium Vitis-Idea.
Morus rubra.
Viburnum Lentago.
Mitchella repens.
Nyssa sylvatica.
Polygonum pennsylvanicum.
Pinus rigida.
Kalmia latifolia.
Populus balsamifera.
Rubus strigosus.
Rubus occidentalis.
Saxtfraga sp.
Crategus coccinea.
Carex lupulina and Cy-
perus sp.
Cornus paniculata.
Smilax glauca.
Symphoricarpus sp.
Polygonatum biflorum.
Polygonatum commutatum.
Rumex Acetosella.
Oxalis stricta.
Veronica officinalis.
Rhus copallina.
Rhus glabra.
Rhus typhina.
Desmodium sp.
Vicia caroliniana.
Viola sp.
Psedra quinquefolia.
Prunus serotina.
Pyrus rivularis.
Vitis sp.
Prunus pennsylvanica.
Hamamelis virginiana.
Viburnum cassinoides.
588 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
STATUTORY BIRD PROTECTION.
In the year 1907 I went over the statutes of Massachusetts,
from the settlement of the Plymouth Colony to the beginning
of the twentieth century, and scanned the enactments framed
for regulating the destruction of game. These laws show that
from the beginning until recent years the attention of the law-
makers has been directed more toward granting special privi-
leges, or monopolies, for the killing of game than toward pro-
tecting it. Certain places were reserved for certain people
as fowling places, where nets were set. Penalties were pro-
vided for interference with these privileges. Laws were passed
forbidding any one, except the owner of certain lands, to shoot
thereon.
It was not until 1818 that the Ruffed Grouse and Bob-
white were protected during spring and summer, and neither
these birds nor the Woodcock received adequate protection
until after the beginning of the twentieth century. It was not
until recent years that spring protection was given to shore
birds, and water-fowl never have been adequately protected
in Massachusetts. Spring shooting of wild-fowl was not pro-
hibited, except for one year, until 1909. Wild Turkeys never
were protected. Passenger Pigeons had no protection until
they were practically extinct, and the Heath Hen had no
protection until 1t was nearly extirpated from the mainland.
Other States have been behind Massachusetts, as a whole, in
the matter of bird protection, and some of them are still behind
(1910), although many have advanced beyond her.
Those who have had experience in game legislation know
that most persons who are persistent in introducing and
pressing game laws are working for some special privilege or
for their own profit, and not primarily for the public interest
and the preservation of the game. Our people have failed to
see the necessity of restrictive laws and to enact them in time.
When this is considered, we need not wonder that the game
laws have failed to protect the game. They have failed because
necessary restrictions have not been enacted or enforced at
all, or not until too late. It is useless to protect a bird per-
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 589
petually after it has become extinct, or to establish a close
season of a few months each year to protect a bird that is
nearing extirpation.
Again, our game laws have failed because they have had
no uniformity and no stability; they are constantly changing.
One State protects a certain migratory bird during stated
months; another, near by, does not protect it at all at any
time. It is only during recent years, through the co-opera-
tion of national bodies, such as the Biological Survey and the
National Association of Audubon Societies, that some sem-
blance of uniformity has been brought abcut in some of the
northern States. Through these agencies, and the efforts of
progressive sportsmen, game laws in the United States have
been improved considerably in the last decade. Shooting
seasons have been shortened; sale and export of game have
been prohibited; hunters’ license laws, which provide funds
for the enforcement of game laws, have swept the country;
game commissions have been appointed; game reservations
have been established, and in many ways the situation has
been much improved, but there is still great chance for im-
provement.
Much of the money collected for hunting licenses has
been diverted to other uses than the protection of birds
and the conservation and propagation of game. The system
of appointing game commissioners and wardens is wrong.
Under our present system a man need never hope to be a
game commissioner unless he is an astute, capable politician,
or has powerful political friends. The appointee may be a
good game commissioner (many of them are), but he must
be a keen politician first, last and all the time to secure and
retain the place. Having obtained it, he must be constantly
on guard, or he may lose it through some political change.
The effect which such a system produces on the appointment
of game wardens is well known.
The system of appointing game commissioners and war-
dens should be changed. Civil service principles should rule
in appointments. The game laws never will be properly
enforced until this is done, and until every good citizen who
590 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
is interested in the protection of game stands always ready
to lend a helping hand in their enforcement.
This condition can be brought about only by constant,
perpetual agitation and educational work, such as the Audu-
bon Societies are carrying on. In the meantime it should be
the aim of the game protective associations and game com-
missioners to initiate and advocate the propagation of game
and the establishment of game farms and reservations, not
alone for shooting purposes, but for the general increase of
the game of the land. When we have, in addition to the force
of game wardens in America, a hundred thousand gamekeepers,
game will be far more plentiful than now and the laws will be
far better observed.
Federal Supervision of the Protection of Migratory Birds.
Next to prohibiting the sale of wild game, this is the most
important step to be taken. The Bureau of Biological Sur-
vey. which now has charge of federal game protection, should
be given the power to regulate open and close seasons for
migratory birds, and to make such other regulations for their
protection as may be deemed necessary from time to time.
The personnel of the Bureau is in a position to know the con-
dition of the game throughout the country, to determine the
amount and kind of protection necessary, to make regula-
tions calculated to preserve and increase migratory game
birds, and to co-operate with other American governments
for the enforcement of needed regulations in the two American
continents.
It is proper for each State to regulate the killing of resi-
dent birds, such as the Ruffed Grouse and the Bob-white,
which pass their lives within its borders. All the conditions
regarding these birds may be ascertained by the State authori-
ties, and the State government advisedly may take measures
for their protection. How different is the case of migratory
birds!
As the matter stands now, the States, and, in some cases,
the counties within the States, have laws and regulations differ-
ing so widely that a species that is protected at all times in
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 59]
one State, through which it passes in migration, may have no
protection at ali in the next. Thus the State that desires to
protect any bird effectively can do no less than protect it at
all times, and even then its efforts for conservation may be
neutralized by its neighbors. Even the majority of States
working together for uniform protection will be unable to
accomplish what all might attain under uniform regulations.
What success could this country expect in repelling a foreign
invader were the conduct of the war left to individual States,
and were each State allowed to defend the government or
not, as it might see fit? It is folly to imagine that the con-
servation of migratory animals can attain that success under
the uncertain, ill-advised and constantly changing regulations
of the individual States that it might attain under control or
regulation by the federal government.
It is argued that such control is unconstitutional, but
whenever the American people are satisfied that it is necessary
and imperative, a way will be found to bring it about, and
migratory birds will be protected uniformly. (See Appendix B.)
Nevertheless, no protective efforts in any State should be
relaxed in anticipation of federal regulation until such regu-
lation has become an accomplished and permanent fact.
Public Game and Bird Reservations.
The quotation which follows is taken from my _ paper
entitled Statutory Bird Protection in Massachusetts, which
was published in 1907 in the annual report of the Massachu-
setts State Board of Agriculture: —
“Where all other measures promise only failure there is
still one resource left, and that is the setting aside of tracts of
reservations of woodland, lake, river or shore, within the
limits of which all killing of birds by man may be prohibited,
under heavy penalties. In such tracts or reservations the
resident game and birds may breed unmolested, and thus
replenish the surrounding country. Here migrants may find
safety to stop and rest from their long journeys.
*“A chain of such sanctuaries established along the Atlantic
coast of North America probably would preserve our stock of
592 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
wild-fowl and shore birds indefinitely. The sanctuary has
succeeded in Europe, and it is no new idea here. Already in
Massachusetts we have been experimenting with it in a small
way. One modification of the plan is to forbid the taking or
killing of all wild animals or all birds within certain limits,
after the plan adopted on Cape Ann in 1897 and in the town
of Essex in 1899. In these cases a time limit of five years was
set; but such an act might be made perpetual. Park com-
missioners are given police powers, and can prevent shooting
within the limits of their reservations, as the Metropolitan
Park Commission and many city park commissioners now do.
In 1899, three thousand acres of land were set aside on Wachu-
sett Mountain as a State reservation, and the commissioners
in charge were given police powers; this should ensure a per-
manent game sanctuary for Worcester County. The enact-
ment in 1907, by which the Commissioners on Fisheries and
Game were empowered to take one thousand acres of land on
Martha’s Vineyard as a reservation for the protection of the
Heath Hen and other birds, is an example of direct legislation
for this purpose, more of which will, sooner or later, become
necessary.
“The many bird reservations now established in this
country by the United States government and by the National
Association of Audubon Societies have been so successful as
to demonstrate the fact that public reservations would solve
the problem of game preservation if we could have enough of
them. Failing in this, we must depend largely on private
enterprise.”
A BRIEF SUMMARY OF NEEDED REFORMS FOR GAME
PROTECTION.
If we are to increase the supply of game birds all or most
of the following steps must be taken: —
Establish bird reservations for game birds, wild-fowl and
shore birds.
Legalize the propagation and sale of such game as can be
reared on game farms.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 593
Stop the sale and export of wild game birds.
Secure federal protection of migratory game birds.
Prohibit the sale or use of ultra-destructive or silent
guns.
Establish perpetual or long-term close seasons for all birds
now in danger of extinction.
Require registration of all native hunters under a license
system.
Establish a license fee for alien hunters so high as to be
prohibitive.
Prohibit shooting of all wild game birds and wild-fowl in
winter, spring and summer.
Limit the number of wild game birds that may be legally
taken in a day.
Make game seasons uniform so far as possible, and shorten
rather than lengthen them.
Prohibit night shooting and the pursuit of wild-fowl in
boats.
Stop forest fires.
Establish a system of town bird wardens in addition to
the State game officers.
Limit the number of wandering dogs and cats during the
breeding season of the birds.
Educate the people to respect and obey the game laws
and bird laws. For recent progress see Appendix B.
ENFORCEMENT OF THE GAME LAWS.
Everywhere we hear the complaint that the game laws are
not enforced. In this country the popular idea of a remedy
for any wrong condition seems to be legislation without enforce-
ment. We are fond of securing the passage of laws, but feel
that we are not concerned in enforcing them; our feeling of
responsibility seems to end with the enactment of the statute.
The rest is left to the officers of the law. Enforcement is their
business, and we are inclined to hinder rather than help them
to do their duty.
If any wrong is brought forcibly to our attention, we
attempt to pass a law to right it. We make strenuous efforts
594 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS.
to enact a statute designed to correct an evil, and then we
promptly go off and forget all about it. The law then is
either repealed or becomes a “dead letter,” known to few and
soon forgotten; neither observed nor enforced.
There is little respect for the game and bird laws. Their
enforcement is lax, and many gunners know little and care
less about them. Many people consider it rather “‘smart” to
break the game laws or the trespass laws. It is looked upon
as rather the “sporting thing” to do. The feeling toward the
laws, and the officers who are designated to enforce them, is
quite different here from that prevailing in most parts of
Canada or in England, where the game laws are respected,
and the lawbreaker is looked down upon by decent people
and is as much abhorred as a thief.
It is not the fault of game commissioners that game laws
are neither enforced nor respected. It is the fault of the
system, or, rather, our own fault as a people, for we have per-
mitted and established the system. In criticizing it we are
merely criticizing our own handiwork. The whole matter of
game protection is in our hands. We do not take enough
interest in the game or the game laws; we neither know nor
care enough about them.
If every man applying for a hunter’s license were obliged
to pass an examination on the game and bird laws of his State,
or to identify by name specimens of all the birds that the law
allows him to shoot, and those that are protected under the
law, very few hunting licenses ever would be granted. Are
we to expect observance of the law when the gunners them-
selves do not know the law or the birds that are protected
under it? I know of three cases where game wardens have,
through ignorance, shot birds which were protected by law,
and another warden arrested by mistake an innocent man,
and haled him into court, only to find that the birds in
his possession were not protected by law. If game wardens
do not know the birds, what can be expected of the hunter?
Present conditions can be changed for the better by a
movement to awaken public interest in living game birds,
and to strengthen the sentiment for their protection.
CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 595
Game protective associations should employ detectives to
enforce the game laws, and to see that they are enforced by
the game wardens.
Most gunners are too much interested in dead birds and
too little in living ones. The most important work that can
be done for bird and game protection, and law _ enforce-
ment, is to teach, with both the spoken and the written word,
the value of the bird to man, — its educational, zsthetic and
recreative value. The study of the living bird will check the
evils of the present day. All who become interested in the
bird alive eventually become interested in its protection.
We must popularize the study of birds, bird drawing and bird
photography; stop legalized extermination, and enact and en-
force laws that are designed not to protect the gunner but to
protect the birds; we must promulgate the game laws and
post them in all public places; foster such organizations as
the Audubon Societies and other protective leagues that are
striving to interest the people in the bird alive, and to teach
popular ornithology.
Is it not far better, friend of the keen eye and ready hand,
to pick a few difficult shots and go home with a light bag well
earned, than to clean up all the birds, and not only spoil your
own sport for the future but also that of your brother sports-
men? The ethics of sportsmanship should consist of some-
thing better and higher than the making of a record or the
gratification of pampered stomachs. A photograph of the
living bird in all its strength and beauty is a far better and
more lasting trophy than the torn and mangled carcass of a
feathered friend.
Some self-denial on the part of the sportsman and an
aroused public interest and public sentiment, with liberality
in encouraging the propagation of game birds, will bring
about respect for the laws, and make the North American
continent again the greatest game bird country in the world.
If this volume shall contribute anything toward that end it
will have served its purpose.
_"
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A LIST OF THE NAMES OF THOSE WHO FILLED
OUT THE BLANK FORMS FOR INFORMATION,
WHICH FORM THE BASIS OF THE ESTI-
MATES ON THE RECENT DECREASE
OF GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL
AND SHORE BIRDS.
LIST OESNAMES OF THOSE WHO FILEED OUT
BLANK FORMS FOR INFORMATION, WHICH
FORM AHE BASIS OF THIS VOLUME:
Aiken, Judge John A., .
Allen, Charles F., .
Allen, Thomas,
Allen, William H.,
Ames, Willard,
Andrews, Henry P.,
Appleton, John L.,
Ashworth, John W.,
Aspinwall, Thomas,
Aspinwall, W. H.,
Austin, E. H.,
Babson, Edward, .
Bacon, Vaughan D.,
Bailey, Dr. John W.,
Baldwin, Frank F., :
Baldwin, William Ray,
Banning, Frank,
Bartlett, Henry,
Bartlett, Herbert W..,
Bass, Charles E., .
Bassett, Bartlett E.,
Bassett, Joseph E.,
Bassett, Nathan A.,
Bates, Charles,
Bates, N. W.,
Bean, J. W., .
Belcher, William B.,
Bemis, James E., .
Bent, A. C.,
Besse, Freeman T.,
Bigelow, Henry B.,
Binford, F. A..,
Bird, Charles S.,
Bishop, Dr. Louis B.,
Blood, Edmund,
Blossom, Irving L.,
Boutwell, Micah M..,
Greenfield, Mass.
South Duxbury, Mass.
Montague, Mass.
Dartmouth, Mass.
West Bridgewater, Mass.
Hudson, Mass.
Nantucket, Mass.
Gleasondale, Mass.
Brookline, Mass.
Chestnut Hill, Mass.
Gaylordsville, Conn.
Gloucester, Mass.
Barnstable, Mass.
Arlington, Mass.
Hopkinton, Mass.
Newton, Mass.
Hadlyme, Conn.
Acushnet, Mass.
Plymouth, Mass.
Warwick, Mass.
Chathamsport, Mass.
Bridgewater, Mass.
Bridgewater, Mass.
South Weymouth, Mass.
East Weymouth, Mass.
South Hadley Falls, Mass.
Holbrook, Mass.
South Framingham, Mass.
Taunton, Mass.
Wareham, Mass.
Cambridge, Mass.
Hyannis, Mass.
East Walpole, Mass.
New Haven, Conn.
West Groton, Mass.
Cohasset, Mass.
Lunenburg, Mass.
600 NAMES OF THOSE WHO FILLED OUT BLANK FORMS.
Bowdish, B. S.,
Bowditch, James H.,
Boyle, Edward J.,
Bradway, O. E., ; ;
Brastow, Miss Amelia M., .
Breck, C. A.,
Bremer, Theodore G., .
Brett, Franklin,
Brimley, C. S.,
Brocklebank, Oliver,
Brooks, Clarence M.,
Brown, Frank A., .
Bruen, Frank,
Bubier, George M.,
Buffington, Samuel L.,
Bullock, Alexander H.,
Burgess, John K.,
Burney, Thomas L.,
Burnham, J. A., Jr.,
Burns, John, Jr.,
Bursley, John,
Burt, Henry P.,
Cabot, Dr. Hugh,
Cahoon, Clement A.,
Campbell, Willis C.,
Carbonell, E. T., ;
Carleton, Warren Elliot,
Carter, Edwin A..,
Case, Rev. Bert,
Casey, Neil, :
Chase, Herbert F.,
Cheney, Col. Louis R.,
Churchill, Winslow W.,
Clark, A. B., .
Glark (Ga A... :
Clark, George B., . ;
Clarke, Dr. Charles K.,
Cleveland, Miss Lilian,
Clogston, Henry W.,
Codman, Dr. Ernest Amory,
Coffin, Dr. Rockwell A.,
Colby, Francis T.,.
Coles, William E.,
Converse, Irving O.,
Demarest, N. J.
Boston, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Monson, Mass.
Wrentham, Mass.
Methuen, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
North Duxbury, Mass.
Raleigh, N. C.
Georgetown, Mass.
Keene, N. H.
Beverly, Mass.
Bristol, Conn.
Lynn, Mass.
Touisset, Mass.
Worcester, Mass.
Dedham, Mass.
Lynn, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
West Barnstable, Mass.
New Bedford, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Harwich, Mass.
Agawam, Mass.
Charlottetown, P. E. I.
Plymouth, Mass.
Springfield, Mass.
Richmond Beach, Wash.
Melrose, Mass.
Amesbury, Mass.
Hartford, Conn.
Cambridge, Mass.
Peabody, Mass.
Lynn, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Toronto, Ontario, Can.
West Medford, Mass.
Bernardston, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Attleborough, Mass.
Fitchburg, Mass.
NAMES OF THOSE WHO FIELED ©UT BEANK FORMS.
601
Coulter, Charles Sidney,
Cowing, D.T., .
Crafts, Clifford L.,
Cross, William J.,
Crysler, H. Stanley,
Cummings, Benjamin, .
Cummings, W. W.,
Curtis, Benjamin F.,
Daland, John, Jr.,
Damon, Wiley 5.,
Davis, N. A., ;
Davoll, Frank A.,
Day, Frederick B.,
Dean, Charles A.,
De Haven, T. N.,
De Meritte, Edwin,
Denmead, Talbott,
Dexter, Charles R.,
Dill, Fred P.,
Dolan, Edwin B., .
Douglas, Howard M., .
Dutton, Harry,
Dyke, Arthur C., .
Eaton, Edward W.,
Edson, Edward E.,
Edwards, Vinal N.,
Eldredge, Albert H.,
Eldredge, A. S., ;
Eldridge, Nathaniel A.,
Ellis, Elisha T.,
Emerson, Raymond,
Enders, J. O.,.
Ensign, Charles L.,
Estabrook, F. B., .
Estabrook, Henry A., .
Ewell, Ralph C.,
Fales, Lewis A.,
Farmer, Walter B.,
Faunce, Carl C., ,
Fay, Henry W., . : ;
Fessenden, Judge Franklin G.,
Fish, Henry A.,
Cambridge, Mass.
Hadley, Mass.
East Whately, Mass.
Becket, Mass.
Lowell, Mass.
New Bedford, Mass.
Woburn, Mass.
Washington, D. C.
Salem, Mass.
Scituate, Mass.
Concord, Mass.
Dartmouth, Mass.
Lynn, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Ardmore, Pa.
Boston, Mass.
Baltimore, Md.
Rochester, Mass.
North Eastham, Mass.
Agawam, Mass.
Plymouth, Mass.
Medford, Mass.
Bridgewater, Mass.
Newburyport, Mass.
Scituate, Mass.
Woods Hole, Mass.
Ware, Mass.
Lincoln, Mass.
Chatham, Mass.
North Easton, Mass.
Concord, Mass.
Hartford, Conn.
Newton, Mass.
East Northfield, Mass.
Fitchburg, Mass.
Sea View, Mass.
Attleborough, Mass.
Brookline, Mass.
Kingston, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Greenfield, Mass.
South Duxbury, Mass.
602 NAMES OF THOSE WHO FILLED OUT BLANK FORMS.
Fish, Thomas J.,_ . : , : : ; . East Bridgewater, Mass.
Fisher,-C. L., : ; : : ‘ : . South Deerfield, Mass.
Flanagan, John H., : , : : : . Providence, R. 1.
Floyd, John R., . : : ; : : . Rowley, Mass.
Fottler, John, Jr., ; ; . Boston, Mass.
Francis, Eben W.., ; ; P : é . Nantucket, Mass.
Fuertes, Louis Agassiz, : : s) IthacasiNe ays
Fuller, Stephen W., — . : ; ; ‘ . Yarmouthport, Mass.
Gafney, J. H., : : f : : 2 . Petersham, Mass.
Gardner, Howard $.,_ . : 5 . South Swansea, Mass.
Gates, Hon. Joseph S., ; . . . Westborough, Mass.
Gerrett, Hon. Frank, . ; ; 3 . Greenfield, Mass.
Gifford, John I. . Ne ct ak . South Westport, Mass.
Gifford, Paul W., . : ; : : . Duxbury, Mass.
Gill, Howard W., . : : : . North Eastham, Mass.
Gilmore, Clinton G.,_. i : } , . Lenox, Mass.
Gould, Alfred E., . : ; : 4 : . Malden, Mass.
Green, Horace O., : : . Stoneham, Mass.
Greenough, Henry V., . . ; , . Brookline, Mass.
Haines, George H., : : . Sandwich, Mass.
Haines, George L., : ; . Sandwich, Mass.
Hales, Henry, : : . Ridgewood Village, N. J.
Hall, John A., ; 2 : . Southbridge, Mass.
Hallet, Charles W., ; F . Barnstable, Mass.
Hallett, William F., 4 : : . Centerville, Mass.
Hamblin, A. J., . ; . West Falmouth, Mass.
Hammond, Charles F., : : : : . Nantucket, Mass.
Hammond, Gardiner G., . Boston, Mass.
Hammond, James L., . : f : . Mattapoisett, Mass.
Harlow, W.A.,_. . Cummington, Mass.
Harrigan, T. F., . : 4 . Dighton, Mass.
Harvey, Myron E., ; : : : ; . Lunenburg, Mass.
Harwood, Henry W., . : ; : . Barre, Mass.
Hatch, James P., . , . Springfield, Mass.
Hathaway, Harry 8... ; , . So. Auburn, R. I.
Hayden, Albert F., : , : : ‘ . Roxbury, Mass.
Herrick, J. T., : : : : . Springfield, Mass.
Hill, Lewis W., .. 3 . Jamaica Plain, Mass.
Hills, Isaac, . ; ' . Siasconset, Mass.
Hodder, James B., ; . Blackstone, Mass.
Hodge, Dr. C. F., : ; . Worcester, Mass.
Holbrook, G. W., . . Wellfleet, Mass.
Holden, E. F., P : ; : : _ Melrose, Mass.
NAMES OF THOSE WHO FILLED OUT BLANK FORMS. 603
Holden, William,
Holmes, Clark W.,
Horsfall, Bruce,
Horton, Lawrence,
Howard, A. O.,
Leominster, Mass.
Manomet, Mass.
Princeton, N. J.
Canton, Mass.
East Northfield, Mass.
Howell, Benjamin F., . . —. a aroysHillse Neo.
Howland, George F., . : : : : . South Framingham, Mass.
Howland, William F., . : ; . South Framingham, Mass.
Hoyt, William H.,
Hubbard, John S.,
Hylan, Rev. Albert E.,
Ide, Dr. Philip S.,
Ingalls, Charles E.,
Jacobus, C. F.,
Jones, Jonathan H.,
Jones, Dr. L. C.,
Joyce, Edward F.,
Judkins, Dr. F. L.,
Keene, Walton E.,
Keene, Warren P.,
Kelley, Walter F.,
Kellogg, Dr. E. C.,
Kelsey, B. R.,
Keniston, Allan,
Keyes, Darwin T.,
Killum, Frank W.,
Kinney, A. B. F., .
Klaiber, Sigmund,
Knight, Ora Willis,
Lamb, Charles R.,
Lane, Lawton W.,
Larkin, Walter A.,
Latham, Charles R.,
Law, J. Douglas,
Leonard, Cornelius H.,
Leonard, Edwin,
Leonard, William H.,
Leonard, Willis B.,
Lewis, Benjamin K.,
Linder, George,
Long, William B.,
Stamford, Conn.
Sturbridge, Mass.
Vineyard Haven, Mass.
Wayland, Mass.
East Templeton, Mass.
Turners Falls, Mass.
Waquoit, Mass.
Malden, Mass.
Lawrence, Mass.
Lynn, Mass.
Bourne, Mass.
Bourne, Mass.
Nantasket, Mass.
Swansea, Mass.
Waterbury, Conn.
Edgartown, Mass.
East Deerfield, Mass.
Topsfield. Mass.
Worcester, Mass.
Turners Falls, Mass.
Bangor, Me.
Cambridge, Mass.
Lynn, Mass.
Andover, Mass.
Windsor Locks, Conn.
Springfield, Mass.
Middleborough, Mass.
Feeding Hills, Mass.
East Foxborough, Mass.
Pittsfield, Mass.
Lynn, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
604 NAMES OF THOSE WHO FILLED OUT BLANK FORMS.
Look, John E.,
Lovell, Orville D.,
Lovell, Shirley,
Ludden, Dr. E. A..,
Luman, John F.,
Lund, Fred B.,
Lyman, A. M..,
Lyman, George H.,
Macfarlane, John,
Macker, Elmer A.,
Macomber, S. H.,
Manning, Warren H..,
Marsh, Dr. Franklin F.,
Martin, Dr. G. A.,
Maynard, C. J.,
Millard, George O.,
Miller, Fred H.,
Miller, Richard,
Mills, Harry C.,
Mills, James L.,
Milner, W. P.,
Mitchell, J. D.,
Mixter, George,
Moore, James W.,
Morris, Dr. M. A.,
Morris, Robert O.,
Morse, C. Harry, .
Morse, George F.,
Moseley, B. P.,
Munn, Charles C.,
Nash, C. W..,. .
Nelson, George L.,
Nichols, Arthur M.,
Nicholson, John S.,
Nims, Charles W.,
Northup, L. J.,
Noyes, A. S., .
Nye, Russell S.,
O’Brien, D. H..,
Osborn, Francis B.,
Oak Bluffs, Mass.
Osterville, Mass.
Yarmouthport, Mass.
North Brookfield, Mass.
Thorndike, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Montague, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Methuen, Mass.
North Grafton, Mass.
Central Village (West-
port), Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Wareham, Mass.
Franklin, Mass.
West Newton, Mass.
Blandford, Mass.
Hingham, Mass.
Turners Falls, Mass.
Unionville, Conn.
Ayer, Mass.
Concord, Mass.
Victoria, Texas.
Hardwick, Mass.
Agawam, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Springfield, Mass.
Belmont, Mass.
South Lancaster, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Springfield, Mass.
Toronto, Ontario, Can.
Groveland, Mass.
North Adams, Mass.
Hyannis, Mass.
Greenfield, Mass.
Cheshire, Mass.
Whitinsville, Mass.
Falmouth, Mass.
Rowley, Mass.
Hingham, Mass.
NAMES OF THOSE WHO FILLED OUT BLANK FORMS. 605
Paige, Henry E..,
Paine, Charles J., Jr.,
Paradise, George C.,
Parker, Edward L.,
Parker, Harold,
Payson, Gilbert R.,
Payson, Samuel C.,
Pearson, Lyman,
Pearson, T. Gilbert,
Pease, Henry 5%.,
Peckham, Dr. Fenner Eee
Pennock, Charles J.,
Perkins, Charles L.,
Perry, Dr. Elton, Jr.,
Perry, Harry D.,
Perry, Nathan C.,
Peters, George G..,.
Pettey, Arthur E.,
Phillips, E. E., —.
Phillips, Dr. John C.,
Pierce, A. N.,
Pierce, Edgar,
Pitman, A. B.,
Poland, George M..,
Poole, Chester M.,
Potter, Dr. William G.,
Bratt, A. Es
Pratt, Herbert A.,
Prentiss, William N.,
Ramage, Lawson, .
Raymond, Fred,
Remick, John A., Jr.,
Remington, Charles H.,
Rice, James Henry, Jr.,
Robbins, Willard W.,
Robinson, Edwin B., Jr.,
Rodgers, John B.,
Rogers, E. E..,
Ross, Augustus B.,
Sadler, Charles H..,
Sanford, Dr. Leonard Ce
Amherst, Mass.
Weston, Mass.
Fall River, Mass.
Concord, Mass.
Lancaster, Mass.
Belmont, Mass.
Brookline, Mass.
Byfield, Mass.
Greensborough, N. C.
Middlefield, Mass.
Providence, R. I.
KKennett Square, Pa.
Newburyport, Mass.
Austin, Tex.
Marshfield Hills, Mass.
Pocasset, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Central Village (West-
port), Mass.
Provincetown, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Greenfield, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Siasconset, Mass.
Wakefield, Mass.
Chilmark, Mass.
New Bedford, Mass.
Belchertown, Mass.
North Middleborough,
Mass.
Milford, Mass.
Monroe Bridge, Mass.
Bourne, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
East Providence, R. I.
Summerville, S. C.
Medfield, Mass.
Cataumet, Mass.
Barnstable, Mass.
West Barnstable, Mass.
Millers Falls, Mass.
Auburndale, Mass.
New Haven, Conn.
606 NAMES OF THOSE WHO FILLED OUT BLANK FORMS.
Saunders, Dr. Frederick H.,
Saunders, William E., .
Sears, William C.,
Sharrock, Richard J.,
Shaws. less, d
Shaw, Gilbert M.,
Shaw, John H.,
Sheldon, Israel R.,
Sherriffs, William E.,
Sibley, Myron E.,
Small, Reuben C.,
Small, Willard M.,
Smith, Arthur E.,
Smith, DeWitt,
Smith, John B.,
Smith, William M.,
Soule, Guy L.,
Sparrow, Samuel E.,
Staples, Edward F.,
Stapleton, R. P.,
Stone, Clayton E.,
Stone, William M..,
Storey, R. C.,
Stratton, A. L.,
Struthers, Parke, .
Stubbs, Arthur P.,
Sturgis, Moses,
Sturtevant, Harry P., .
Sugden, Arthur W.,
Swan, Alfred S..,
Taylor, George L., 3
Tenney, Judge Sanborn G.,
Thacher, Frank G.,
Thayer, Bayard,
Thayer, Henry F.,
Tinkham, Horace W..,
‘Townsend, Charles W.,
Treat, Willard E.,
Tribou, Charles E.,
Tripp, George F., .
Trull, George W., .
Tuck, Herbert E.,
Tufts, Harold F., .
Turner, Henry A.,
Westfield, Mass.
London, Ontario, Can.
Hyannis, Mass.
Westport, Mass.
East Weymouth, Mass.
South Weymouth, Mass.
Plymouth, Mass.
Pawtuxet, R. I.
Hull, Mass.
Lynn, Mass.
Nantucket, Mass.
North Truro, Mass.
Milford, Mass.
Chester, Mass.
Springfield, Mass.
Winchester, Mass.
Duxbury, Mass.
East Orleans, Mass.
Taunton, Mass.
Holyoke, Mass.
Lunenburg, Mass.
Dennis, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Gardner, Mass.
Alfred, Me.
Lynn, Mass.
Hyannisport, Mass.
Bridgewater, Mass.
Hartford, Conn.
~ North Eastham, Mass.
Gloucester, Mass.
Williamstown, Mass.
Hyannis, Mass.
Lancaster, Mass.
Bridgewater, Mass.
Touisset, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Silver Lane, Conn.
Brockton, Mass.
West Harwich, Mass.
Tewksbury, Mass.
Bradford, Mass.
Wolfville, N.S.
Norwell, Mass.
NAMES OF THOSE WHO FILLED OUT BLANK FORMS. 607
Tuttle, Dr. Albert H.,
Tuttle, Harry E., .
Tweedy, John E., .
Underwood, A.,
Underwood, Loring,
Van Huyck, J. M.,
Walker, Arthur L.,
Walker, Howard L.,
Ward, John,
Watson, B. M.,
Watson, R. C.,
Weekes, Charles H.,
Weeks, W. B. P., .
Weston, Francis M., Jr.,
Wharton, William P., .
Wheeler, Wilfred, .
White, George E.,
Whitin, Henry T.,
Whiting, Willard C.,
Willard, George O.,
Williams, J. A.,
Williamson, Barney P.,
Wilson, Thomas C.,
Wiltshire, Frank, .
Wing, Henry P.,
Winslow, John M.,
Wolfe, Philip W., .
Woodward, Dr. W. C.,
Zeigler, F. R., :
Zerrahn, Carl O., .
Cambridge, Mass.
Concord, Mass.
Attleborough, Mass.
West Falmouth, Mass.
Belmont, Mass.
Lee, Mass.
Brookline, Mass.
Leominster, Mass.
Cambridge, Mass.
Jamaica Plain, Mass.
Milton, Mass.
Providence, R. I.
Boston, Mass.
Charleston, S. C.
Groton, Mass.
Concord, Mass.
East Carver, Mass.
Northbridge, Mass.
Plymouth, Mass.
Blandford, Mass.
Northbridge, Mass.
Marshfield, Mass.
Ipswich, Mass.
Kentville, N.S.
Central Village (West-
port), Mass.
Nantucket, Mass.
North Weymouth, Mass.
Middleborough, Mass.
Pittsfield, Mass.
Milton, Mass.
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APPENDIX A.
RECORDS OF THE OCCURRENCE OF RARE OR ACCIDENTAL
SPECIES NOT CONTAINED IN THE FIRST EDITION AND NOT
INCLUDED IN THE BODY OF THE SECOND EDITION.
SNOW GOOSE (Chen hyperboreus hyperboreus). See page 172.
MatneE REcorps.
One was taken near Portland in December, 1880 (Brown,
Abst. Proc. Portland Soc. Nat. Hist., II, 1882, p. 2). A male
was taken at Toddy Lake, Hancock County, October 4, 1893,
and a male at Umbagog Lake on October 2, 1896 (Brewster,
Auk, 1897, p. 207); one at Pushaw Pond and one at Nicatous
prior to 1897 (Knight, fide Hardy, Bull. 3, Univ. of Me.,
1897, p. 36). Two were shot near Merrymeeting Bay, one
on October 10 and the other a short time later, in 1897 (Knight,
fide Day, Maine Sportsman, Sept. 1898, p. 14). The follow-
ing are Snow Geese, species unidentified: one at Glenburn,
October 18, 1881, and one near Hallowell, November 25,
1881. Mr. Alpheus G. Rogers of Portland reports one which
he saw at Cape Elizabeth on October 9, 1911. One was taken
in Gorham in November, 1908! (Norton, Auk, 1909, p. 304).
Massacuusetts Recorps.
Mr. Benjamin F. Damsell notes one shot October 7, 1888.
Another was shot by Mr. Albert Shaw in 1902. A flock was
seen February 18, 1902, at Amesbury.” A flock of thirty or
more was seen at Framingham on November 19, 1909.° Five
were taken at Robbin’s Pond, East Bridgewater, on November
20, 1914. Three others are reported seen at Robbin’s Pond
in 1913.4
1 Norton, Arthur H.: Auk, 1913, p. 575. 3 Bridge, Mrs. Lidian E.: Auk, 1910, p. 78.
2 Allen, Glover M.: Auk, 1913, p. 22. 4 Phillips, John C.: Auk, 1915, p. 367.
612 APPENDIX.
GREATER SNOW GOOSE (Chen hyperboreus nivalis). See page 173.
Maine Recorps.
On April 4, 1913, upwards of thirty Snow Geese were
seen at Pine Point, Scarboro, by Mr. I. W. Pillsbury and
others. The following day several smaller flocks were reported
in different parts of Casco Bay. From one of these flocks
four birds were taken, at Great Chebeague Island. One bird,
Heron Island, Phippsburg, April 7, 1889 (Batchelder, Auk,
1890, p. 284). One bird, Back River, Georgetown, April 25,
1903 (Spinney, Jour. Me. Orn. Soe., 1904, p. 69). One bird,
Lubec, April 30, 1906 (Clark, Jour. Me. Orn. Soc., 1906,
p. 48). A flock of about two hundred on the ice of Long
Pond between Bridgton and Harrison, April 13, 1908, and
a similar flock on Sebago Lake on the following day! (Mead,
Jour. Me. Orn. Soc., 1908, p. 59).
BLUE GOOSE (Chen cerulescens). See page 174.
An adult female Blue Goose was taken at Dyer’s Island,
R. I., by Mr. Sinclair Tucker on November 9, 1912. This
is the second record for Rhode Island, and the fourth for
New England. The skin is in the collection of the Boston
Society of Natural History.’
WHISTLING SWAN (Olor columbianus). See page 199.
A Whistling Swan was shot at Webb’s Pond, Ellsworth,
Me., in March, 1908, by Mr. Hamlin Kingman.* On Novem-
ber 21, 1914, two Swans were seen circling over Oldham Pond,
Pembroke, Mass. They were seen later at Silver Lake.4 These
probably were whistling swans, but many recent reports of
swans seen near Boston followed soon after the escape of some
European mute swans from the Boston park system.
KING RAIL (Rallus elegans). See page 204.
A specimen was noted on August 14, 1902, at Amesbury.®
A specimen in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural
1 Norton, Arthur H.: Auk, 1913, p. 575-576. 4 Phillips, John C.: Auk, 1915, p. 367.
2 Brooks, W. Sprague: Auk, 1915, p. 226. 5 Allen, Glover M.: Auk, 1913, p. 23.
3 Knight, Ora Willis: Auk, 1910, p. 78.
APPENDIX. 613
History was taken at Ipswich on March 13, 1908. Mr. Russell
Bearse took another King Rail at Chatham on December 28,
1908. This bird is in the collection of Mr. Warren E. Freeman
of Arlington, Mass.!. Mr. Richard M. Russell took a King
Rail at Sandy Neck, West Barnstable, on December 30 or
31, 1909. This bird is owned by the Boston Society of Natural
History.2, One was taken by Mr. W. A. Carey, October 2,
1909, at Chatham. A setter dog caught one alive October 25,
1909, on the marsh at Chatham. Mr. Frank Eldredge took
a lone bird at Chatham on October 20, 1909.° One spent the
month of May, 1910, in a swamp in Bennington, Vt.‘ On
August 30, 1911, a King Rail was taken along the Connecticut
River below Springfield.» Another was taken August 22,
1913, in Longmeadow.®
Three winter records from Rhode Island are given in Howe
and Sturtevant’s Birds of Rhode Island. Since then a male
and a female were taken on May 3, 1904, and a male on May
9, 1904, all at Easton’s Pond, Newport, by Mr. C. B. Clark.
One was taken October 13, 1907, by Mr. H. S. Champlin.
Mr. Clark took four birds at Point Judith on the following
dates: a female August 26, an adult male September 3, a male
on September 12, and another male on December 12, 1909.7
WILSON’S PHALAROPE (Steganopus tricolor). See page 230.
Mr. Harry S. Hathaway took a male Wilson’s Phalarope
at Quonochontaug, R. I., on August 28, 1909.8 An adult
female was taken by a Mr. Whitlock at Quogue, Long Island,
N. Y., on September 4, 1911.°
MARBLED GODWIT (Limosa fedoa). See page 296.
A Marbled Godwit was taken at Amesbury, Mass., by Mr.
Benjamin F. Damsell on July 28, 1888, and another on July
30.19 One was taken by a gunner named Merritt on September
7, 1908, at Sakonnet Point, R. I. The specimen was mounted
1 Fay, S. Prescott: Auk, 1910, p. 220. 6 Morris, Robert O.: Auk, 1913, p. 580.
2 Howe, R. Heber, Jr.: Auk, 1910, p. 339. 7 Hathaway, Harry S.: Auk, 1913, pp. 549-550.
3 Fay, 8. Prescott: Auk, 1911, p. 121. 8 [bid., p. 551.
4 Ross, Lucretius H.: Auk, 1913, p. 486. 9 Kobbé, Frederick Wm.: Auk, 1912, p. 108.
5 Morris. Robert O.: Auk, 1912, p. 237. 10 Allen, Glover M.: Auk, 1913, p. 24.
614 APPENDIX.
and is in his possession.!. Mr. Wm. Ganung shot an adult
female Marbled Godwit at West Haven, Conn., on August 26,
1909.?
RUFF (Machetes pugnax). See page 314.
Mr. Wm. T. Bowler took an immature female Ruff on
September 7, 1909, on the Poimt Judith marsh, which was in
company with two Pectoral Sandpipers. This is the third
record for Rhode Island. The specimen is now in the collec-
tion of Mr. Harry S. Hathaway. On October 16, 1912, a
female Ruff was taken on the Nonesuch River, Scarboro, Me.,
by Mr. I. W. Pillsbury. It is now in the collection of Mr.
Arthur H. Norton. This was taken but a short distance from
the spot where Mr. Everett Smith shot the first Maine speci-
men in 1870. This furnishes the fourth record for the State,
the others being: the Smith specimen referred to, April 10,
1870 (Smith, Forest and Stream, 1883, p. 85); a female taken
at Upton, Me., September 8, 1874 (the second specimen, but
the first to be published) (Brewster, Bull. Nuttall Orn. Club,
1876, p. 19); a specimen recorded as taken at Camden, Me.,
September 4, 1900 (Thayer, Auk, 1905, p. 409).4
LONG-BILLED CURLEW (Numenius americanus). See page 328.
A Long-billed Curlew was taken July 21, 1887, and another
on July 25, 1891, probably on the Salisbury marshes, by Mr.
Benjamin F. Damsell.®
ESKIMO CURLEW (Numenius borealis). See page 430.
Mr. Benjamin F. Damsell notes one taken on August 31,
1889, one on August 28 and one on the 29th, 1893, near Ames-
bury.® A single bird was taken at Alberton, P. E. I., by Mr.
C. O. Zerrahn of Milton, Mass., in 1905. The skin is now in
his collection. In the history of this bird, as written for the
first edition, it was stated that it was not improbable that a
few more birds of the species or even small flocks might yet
be seen or taken. Apparently several birds have been taken
1 Hathaway, Harry S.: Auk, 1913, p. 551. 4 Norton, Arthur H.: Auk, 1913, p. 576.
2 Bishop, Louis B.: Auk, 1910, p. 462. 5 Allen, Glover M.: Auk, 1913, p. 24.
3 Hathaway, Harry S.: Auk, 1913, p. 552.
APPENDIX. 615
since. In his Birds of Oconto County, Mr. A. J. Schoenebeck
reports one taken near Oconto, Wis., April 27, 1899.!
The identity of this bird has been questioned.?
In a letter to Dr. Charles W. Townsend, Dr. W. T. Grenfell
reports seven Eskimo Curlew shot and one other seen on the
beach at West Bay, north of Cartwright, Labrador, in August
and September, 1912. The skins of five were saved and sent
to Cambridge, where they were seen and identified by Mr.
William Brewster.’