12 GAME BIRDS. WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



speak of the country as abounding with diversity of wild-fowl, 

 as Turkeys, Partridges, Swans, Wild Geese, wild Ducks and 

 many Doves. ^ 



Sir Ferdinando Gorges (1658) states that there were plenty 

 of fish and fowl for the " sustentation " of the settlers, " so 

 that they could not say (according to the manner of their liv- 

 ing) they wanted anything nature did require." " 



The Baron de Lahontan (May 28, 1687) speaks of the 

 immense numbers of Geese, Ducks and Teal, with an "infinity 

 of other fowl," which he found at Lake Champlain, and states 

 that his party ate nothing but water-fowl there for fifteen 

 days.^ 



The early explorers of Newfoundland, the St. Lawrence 

 River and Canada, both French and English, tell similar 

 stories of an abundance of fowl. The references to birds are 

 fragmentary, however, and the descriptions and nomenclature 

 of the species are often indefinite and confusing. We can see 

 from these accounts that game was very plentiful, and we can 

 get some valuable information regarding a few of the larger 

 and more conspicuous species; but to get an adequate idea of 

 the former numbers of game birds in America we must turn 

 to the more recent accounts of conditions in the great w^est, 

 which has been settled within a century, or to the narratives 

 of those who have hunted in the thinly settled parts of the 

 south Atlantic and Gulf coasts. 



Former Abundance of Game Birds in the West and 



South. 



Game has been abundant in the west and south within the 

 last half-century, and game birds are still plentiful in some 

 parts of these regions. Many species of game birds have been 

 decimated and their territory greatly restricted, but by the 

 records of their former or present abundance and their 

 decrease in the west and south we may be able to approxi- 

 mate the conditions that formerly existed on the Atlantic 

 seaboard. Audubon writes in his journal, in camp at the 



1 Coll. Mass. Hi.st. Soc, Vol. IX, 2d ser., p. 18. 



2 Ibid., Vol. VI, 3d ser., p. 89. 



' Lahontan, Baron de: Some New Voyages to North America, 1703, p. 61. 



