266 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



"About as plentiful to-day as twenty-five years ago" (Charles 

 R. Lamb, Cambridge). *'We get more at the Cape I think" 

 (Samuel E. Sparrow, East Orleans). 



The species seems to be doing as well at Chatham as any- 

 where along our coast. The shooting records of the old 

 Chatham Beach Hotel will give an idea of the numbers taken 

 there. They are as follows: 1897, one hundred and fifty- 

 three; 1898, one hundred and fifty; 1899, one hundred and 

 sixty-one; 1900, one hundred and eighty-eight; 1901, one hun- 

 dred and sixty-one; 1902, one hundred and twenty-three; 

 1903, two hundred and sixty-seven; 1904, one hundred and 

 sixty-seven. The year 1903 seems to have brought an unusual 

 number, as fifty were killed in one day with sixteen men 

 shooting; another day nineteen were taken with seven men 

 after them. In 1900, on another record day, twenty -eight 

 birds were killed by three men. 



All my correspondents outside of Massachusetts, from 

 Maine to Florida, tell a sad story of the decrease of these 

 birds, except Mr. Harry W. Hathaway of Providence, who 

 says that there are many small flocks of young birds on Block 

 Island in September, Even on the southwestern coast of 

 Florida Mr. Charles L. Dean says that they have decreased 

 fifty per cent, in twenty years. Dr. Leonard C. Sanford of 

 New Haven says that this decrease is due largely to spring 

 shooting on the coast of Virginia and North Carolina, and 

 Mr. George H. Mackay tells of heavy spring shooting in 

 Virginia. The decrease is probably due, however, to shoot- 

 ing both spring and fall all along our coasts, and possibly to 

 some extent in South America. Evidently we are doing more 

 than driving the Red-breast off our coast, and while the utter 

 extinction of such a cosmopolitan bird is not imminent, its 

 extirpation from the Atlantic coast of North America is one 

 of the possibilities of the near future. 



This bird frequents the ocean beach, the tidal flat and more 

 rarely the salt marsh. On the beach it plays back and forth, 

 following the receding waves and retreating before their 

 advance. When the surf pounds upon the sandy shore it is 

 the Red-breast's harvest time. Then the surge constantly 



