258 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



taken during the season; in 1898, fifty -seven; in 1899, fifty- 

 eight; in 1900, fifty; in 1901, one hundred and thirty; in 

 1902, fifty-four; in 1903, seventy-two; in 1904, forty-five. 

 The number of men shooting each day varied from one to 

 twenty-six. In 1909 I frequented the haunts of this bird but 

 saw only three during the summer. 



The conclusions resulting from the foregoing may be 

 summed up in three propositions, thus: (a) The Dowitcher, 

 formerly numerous in New England, is now growing rare, (b) 

 It is numerous still in the southern States, (c) The present 

 main flight to the southern States does not touch New England. 



Practically all correspondents who assign a cause for the 

 decrease of this bird attribute it to spring shooting or over- 

 shooting. The Dowitcher is naturally so unsuspicious that it 

 is about the last shore bird to fly from an approaching gunner. 

 There are some "educated" birds, but the above statement is 

 true in the main. It will come readily to the call of the con- 

 cealed gunner and alight to his decoys, leaving him to shoot 

 whenever he can get the birds at the greatest disadvantage. 

 The survivors will fly when the flock is shot into, but often 

 can be called back to their killed and wounded comrades, until 

 in many cases a single expert market gunner or sportsman has 

 killed the whole flock. When spring shooting was allowed 

 those of this species which reached the Atlantic coast in New 

 England had little chance ever to return, and thus most of the 

 individuals which regularly migrated down this coast were 

 killed off annually. Probably we now get but a few stragglers 

 from the stream of migration w^hich normally passes west of 

 us, without stopping on this coast. It is probable, also, that 

 our shooting has cleaned up most of the birds in the eastern 

 section of their breeding grounds, and that others spreading 

 into the unoccupied ground from the westward take the old 

 migration route, and so continue to straggle along our coasts, 

 but this is merely conjecture. 



Something must be done to protect this species or it will 

 join the Dodo and the Great Auk, and will be known only by 

 specimens in museums. Its comparative abundance in the 

 south will save it for a time, for sportsmen will hardly go 



