Page 70 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

—
48
OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
together with an occasional bad season, decimated their ranks. They were eaten bythefarmers,bothinandoutofseason. Drivenfrompillartopost,withnofriends and insufficient food,—what else then can be expected?"
Mr. F. C. Pellett, of Atlantic, Iowa, says: "Unless ways can be devised of rearing these birds in the domestic state, the prairie hen in my opinion is doomed to early extinction."
The older inhabitants here say that there is not one song-bird in summer where there used to be ten.—(G. H. Nicol, in Outdoor Life March, 1912.)
Kansas:
To all of those named in my previous list that are not actually extinct, I might add
the prairie hen, the lesser prairie hen, as well as the prairie sharp-tailed grouse and the wood-duck. Such water birds as the avocets, godwits, greater yellow-legs, long- billed curlew and Eskimo curlew are becoming very rare. All the water birds that are killed as game birds have been greatly reduced in numbers during the past 25 years. Ihavenotseenawood-duckin5years. Theprairiechickenhasentirelydis- appearedfromthislocality. AfewarestillseeninthesandhillsofwesternKansas,^ and they are still comparatively abundant along the extreme southwestern line, and in northern Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle.—(C. H. Smyth, Wichita.)
Yellow-legged plover, golden plover; Hudsonian and Eskimo curlew, prairie chicken.—(James Howard, Wichita.)
Louisiana:
Ivory-billedwoodpecker,butterball,bufflehead. Thewood-duckisgreatlydimin-
ishing every year, and if not completely protected, ten years hence no wood-duck will be found in Louisiana.—(Frank M. Miller, and G. E. Beyer, New Orleans.)
Ivory-billed woodpecker, sandhill crane, whooping crane, pinnated grouse, Ameri- can and snowy egret where unprotected.—(E. A. Mcllhenny, Avery Island.)
Maine:
Wood-duck, upland plover, purple martin, house wren, pileated woodpecker, bald
eagle, yellow-legs, great blue heron, Canada goose, redhead and canvasback duck. (John F. Sprague, Dover.)
Puffin, Leach's petrel, eider duck, laughing gull, great blue heron, fish-hawk and bald eagle.—(Arthur H. Norton, Portland.)
Maryland:
Curlew,pileatedwoodpecker,summerduck,snowyheron. Norecordofsandhill
craneforthelast35years. Greateryellow-legismuchscarcerthanformerly,also Bartramian sandpiper. The only two birds which show an increase in the past few yearsaretherobinandlesserscaup. Generalprotectionoftherobinhascausedits increase; stopping of spring shooting in the North has probably caused the increase ofthelatter. AsageneralpropositionIthinkIcansaythatallbirdsarebecoming- scarcer in this state, as we have laws that do not protect, little enforcement of same, norevenueforbirdprotectionandtoolittlepublicinterest. Weareworkingtochange all this, but it comes slowly. The public fails to respond until the birds are 'most gone, and we have a pretty good lot of game still left. The members of the Order Gallina^ areonlyholdingtheirownwhereprivatelyprotected. ThemembersofthePlover Family and what are known locally as shore birds are still plentiful on the shores of Chincoteague and Assateague, and although they do not breed there as formerly, sofarasIknowtherearenospecies exterminated.—(TalbottDenmead,Baltimore.)
Massachusetts :
Wood-duck, hooded merganser, blue-winged teal, upland plover; curlew (perhaps
already gone) ; red-tailed hawk (I have not seen one in Middlesex County for several years) ; great horned owl (almost gone in my county, Middlesex) ; house wren. The eave swallows and purple martins are fast deserting eastern Massachusetts and the barn swallows steadily diminishing in numbers. The bald eagle should perhaps be included here. I seldom see or hear of it now.—(William Brewster, Cambridge.)
Upland plover, woodcock, wood-duck (recent complete protection is helping these somewhat), heath hen, piping plover, golden plover, a good many song and insec-