Page 53 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

CANDIDATES FOR OBLIVION 31
and turn red in the face at the mention of a law to give all the shore- birds of New York a five-year close season.
But for all that, gentlemen of the gun, there are exactly two alterna- tives between which you shall choose
(1) Either give the woodcock of the eastern United States just ten times the protection that it now has, or (2) bid the species a long farewell. If you elect to slaughter old Philohela minor on the altar of Selfishness, then it will be in order for the millions of people who do not kill birds to say whether that proposal shall be consummated or not.
Read if you please Mr. W. A. McAtee's convincing pamphlet (Biolog- ical Survey, No. 79), on "Our Vanishing Shore Birds," reproduced in full in
Chapter XXIII. He says " Throughout the eastern United States, shore
:
birds are fast vanishing. Many of them have been so reduced that exterminationseemsimminent. Soaversetoshorebirdsarepresentcon- ditions[ofslaughter]thatthewonderisthatanyescape. Alltheshore birds of the United States are in great need of better protection. . . Shore birds have been hunted until only a remnant of their once vast numbers are left. Their limited powers of reproduction, coupled with the natural vicissitudes of the breeding period, make their increase slow, and pecu- liarlyexposethemtodangerofextermination. Sogreatistheireconom- ic value that their retention in the game list and their destruction by sportsmen is a serious loss to agriculture."
And yet, here in New York state there are many men who think they "know," who indignantly scoff at the idea that our shore birds need a five-year close season to help save them from annihilation. The writer's, appeal for this at a recent convention of the New York State Fish, Game and Forest League fell upon deaf ears, and was not even seriously discussed.
The shore-birds must be saved ; and just at present it seems that the only persons who will do it are those who are not sportsmen, and who never kill game ! If the sportsmen persist in refusing to act, to them we must appeal.
Besides the woodcock and snipe, the species that are most seriously threatened with extinction at an early date are the following
Species in Great Danger
Willet
Dowitcher
Knot : Red-Breasted Sandpiper Upland Plover
Golden Plover
Pectoral Sandpiper
Catoptrophorus semipalmatus Macrorhamphus griseus
Tryngites snbruficollis Bartramia longicauda Charadrius dominicus Pisohia maculata
Of these fine species, Mr. Forbush, whose excellent knowledge of the shore birds of the Atlantic coast is well worth the most serious consider- ation, says that the upland plover, or Bartramian sandpiper, "is in immi-
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