BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 191 



that one thousand or fifteen hundred were killed in a season. 

 This was many years ago, before the formation of the Brant 

 clubs. No such number has been killed in recent years. The 

 average number killed by the members of the Monomoy 

 Branting Club for thirty-four years, during the Hapgood 

 regime, is a trifle over two hundred and sixty-six birds per 

 year. The members of the branting clubs state that only a 

 few Brant (less than five hundred) have been killed annually 

 in recent years in Massachusetts under a law which denied 

 the birds protection, and that therefore no protection should 

 be given them; but Mr. John M. Winslow of Nantucket 

 says that under the policy of no protection probably four 

 hundred or five hundred Brant were killed annually on Mus- 

 keget Island. The official figures of the Commissioners on 

 Fisheries and Game show that two hundred and sixty-three 

 Brant w^ere killed on Nantucket in 1907, but probably the 

 average number killed would be less than one hundred per 

 year. Including those taken on Martha's Vineyard, Cape 

 Cod and the entire Massachusetts coast, the number taken 

 yearly is not excessive in the autumnal flight. Quite a 

 number of Brant are now killed in the fall; but spring pro- 

 tection protects. In spring more Brant usually stop on the 

 Massachusetts coast than in fall. They stay longer, the 

 weather for shooting is better and the birds are not so much 

 disturbed by scallop fishermen, etc. On the other hand, the 

 experienced birds in spring are more shy and more difficult 

 to take than the inexperienced young in fall. 



Brant are well protected in summer by the inaccessi- 

 bility of their breeding grounds. Few white men have ever 

 seen them there. On the other hand, the very remoteness of 

 their nesting places in the far north exposes their young to 

 destruction. The adults have but three months at most to 

 nest, deposit their eggs and hatch and rear their broods; 

 the actual period in which they can rear the young after 

 hatching is often not much, if any, over six weeks. Severe 

 and unseasonable storms which occur in the polar summer 

 or early fall sometimes must destroy the increase of the sea- 

 son, or force the parents to fly south, leaving the young to 



