24 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



informed that sixty or seventy years earlier a person could 

 kill eighty Ducks in a morning; " but at present," he says, 

 "you frequentlj^ wait in vain for a single one." The Wild 

 Turkeys, Grouse and Cranes, which were so numerous in 

 former years, were now nearly all gone. Kalm says that the 

 cause of this diminution was not difficult to find, for after the 

 arrival of great crowds of Europeans the country had become 

 well peopled, the woods had been cut off, and the people had 

 by hunting and shooting, partly exterminated the birds and 

 partly frightened them awaj'. There were no regulations or 

 laws to prevent the destruction of birds at any season of the 

 year, and, had any existed, the spirit of freedom prevailing in 

 the country was such that they would not have been obeyed. 

 He heard great complaints of the decrease of eatable fowl, not 

 only in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, of which he speaks par- 

 ticularly, but in all parts of America, wherever he travelled.^ 



Audubon, in his Missouri River journals, frequently men- 

 tions the fact that Geese with young were shot, or shot at, by 

 members of his party or the boat's crew; but he says that 

 in some cases " the poor things fortunately escaped." This 

 destruction of birds in the nesting season was even then 

 common throughout the country. Audubon well describes the 

 rapid destruction of game on the Ohio River during the early 

 part of the nineteenth century. He says that when he first 

 visited the region (about 1810) the shores of the river were 

 amply supplied with game. A Wild Turkey, Grouse or Teal 

 could be procured in a few minutes, and his party fared well. 

 There were then great herds of elk, deer and buffalo on the 

 hills and in the valleys. Twenty years later these herds had 

 ceased to exist. The country was covered with villages, towns 

 and farms, and the din of hammers and machinery was con- 

 stantly heard. The woods were fast disappearing under the 

 axe and fire, hundreds of steamboats were gliding to and fro 

 over the whole length of the river, and most of the game was 

 gone. 



The gunner and hunter were not entirely to blame for the 

 destruction of game; the cutting down of forests drove out 



1 Kalm, Peter: Travels in North America, 1770, Vol. I, p. 289. 



