INTRODUCTION. 23 



one in the woods. This is typical of the white man's destruc- 

 tiveness. He puts firearms in the hands of the savages, and 

 destroys the large game and the gregarious birds that can be 

 taken easily in large numbers with the gun, trap, snare or net. 

 The Indian had a plentiful supply of game until the white 

 man came. The result of giving him firearms and a mar- 

 ket for game was well shown in the last century in the val- 

 ley of the Moisie River, Labrador. The Indians themselves 

 admitted that it was the guns sold to them by the whites 

 that proved their undoing. They shot the deer, sold the skins 

 for more guns, destroyed all the large game in the country, 

 and then either starved or left the country. The white men 

 killed only the larger game at first, or such birds as could be 

 shot in numbers from flocks. Even as late as the beginning 

 of the nineteenth century, Wilson said that gunpowder was 

 too precious in the mountains to be used on anything smaller 

 than a Turkey; but in the valleys and along the coast a few 

 years of settlement were sufficient to destroy most of the 

 larger and much of the smaller game. Hunting was unre- 

 stricted. Practically all the male inhabitants were accus- 

 tomed to the use of firearms. Like the Indians, the settlers 

 killed game at all seasons. The mother bird on her nest, the 

 eggs and young, — all were taken wantonly, without restraint, 

 and all utilized as food. The result of such destructiveness 

 was never for a moment in doubt. The end came quickly. 

 The large game and the resident game birds suffered most, 

 particularly near the centers of population, where the larger 

 game animals and the breeding game birds, such as the deer. 

 Wild Turkey and Pinnated Grouse, were soon extirpated. 



Professor Kalm states that all the old Swedes and English- 

 men born in America, whom he questioned, asserted that 

 there were not nearly so many birds fit for eating "at the 

 present time " (1748) as there were when they were children 

 (1670-90), and that the decrease of these birds was visible. 

 They said that their fathers also had complained of this ; say- 

 ing that in their childhood the bays, rivers and brooks were 

 quite covered with all sorts of water-fowl; but when Kalm 

 was at Swedesboro, New Sweden (now New Jersey) (1748), 

 there was sometimes not a single Duck to be seen. He was 



