264 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



purpose, directed its light on the flocks as they rested on the 

 flats, while the other, keeping him company, seized the birds 

 one at a time, killed them by biting their necks, and placed 

 them in the bag. Mackay was credibly informed that six 

 barrels of these birds thus taken were seen at one time on the 

 deck of the Cape Cod packet bound for Boston, and that in 

 hot weather barrels of spoiled birds were sometimes thrown 

 overboard when the vessel reached Boston. The birds brought 

 but ten cents per dozen in the market. Turnstones and Black- 

 bellied Plover, which keep company with the Knots, were 

 often taken and mixed with them. Beside the Red-breasts 

 destroyed by fire-lighting on Cape Cod, great numbers were 

 shot later, when the railroad opened up the region to sports- 

 men, and this was true all along the Atlantic coast. Every- 

 body shot the Knot, both fall and spring, for it was in demand 

 for the table, brought a good price in the market, decoyed 

 easily, and flew in such flocks that many could be killed at a 

 shot. Sometimes, as in the case of the Dowitchers, one or 

 two skilful gunners annihilated a flock. 



Mackay says (1893) that they are much reduced in numbers 

 and are in great danger of extinction. Mr. S. Hall Barrett 

 informed him that in "old times" he had seen as many as 

 twenty-five thousand of these birds near Billingsgate Light in 

 one year, and that for the five years previous to 1893 he had 

 seen only about one hundred birds a year there. Mr. C. L. 

 Leonard of Marshfield was then seeing about eleven hundred 

 birds during a season, and Mr. Mackay himself reports on 

 good authority that for twelve years the average number on 

 Tuckernuck had not exceeded fifty. ^ 



In time the old birds grew more shy, and sometimes 

 avoided the danger spots along the coast, but the young 

 were easy victims. The numbers of this bird have decreased 

 tremendously all along the Atlantic coast within the last 

 seventy-five years. Up to about 1900 they were still very 

 plentiful in the Carolinas. Brewster has been informed that 

 they are seen there still in considerable numbers. Wayne 

 (1910) says of the Knots near Charleston, S. C, that they used to 



» Mackay, George H.: Observations on the Knot, Auk, 1893, pp. 28-30. 



